Aura
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: After the Final Battle,Ron and Hermione, near death, are dumped upon a disgruntled Snape, now working at St. Mungo's. But there is more to the power of their friendship with the BoyWhoLived than he could have imagined.
1. Uninvited

Author's Notes: This is a sequel to my "With A Little Help from my Friends." A number of readers have agreed that it belongs in a separate story, so here it is. And yes, it is a trio thing, and no, _don't_ ask me what Snape's doing in here. I swear, he muscled his way into what used to be an innocent chapter, grabbed my shoulders and swiveled me round to look at the ending – which I'd always planned without his help, thank you very much – from his PoV. It's official: Fan fiction can change your perception of a character. Reading it, that is, not writing it.

That said, the rest of this story is _not_ about Snape. I'm still just finishing my story as planned, even though you may have wormed your way into my perception of it, Severus.

If you like this story, you have Padfoot 2304 to thank - it never occurred to me until s/he suggested it in a review.

And finally, no, this is not a oneshot, I seem to have confused some people. I estimate it'll be finished in about a week.  
----------------------------------------------

"Can it be true?"

"They saw his body!"

"No, they didn't, they saw the house fall in on them all, the Boy-Who-Lived and…!"

"You-Know-Who's dead for good, I tell you! It's just a matter of time until they dig his body out of the rubble!"

Severus Snape jogged through the halls of St. Mungo's, still unable to quite shake the feeling of unreality that had been a constant companion ever since he had heard of the Dark Lord's demise. Once he _believed_ it, the ex-spy thought, opening the door to his makeshift potions lab, shaking his head as usual at the flimsy lock, then he would work out what to do with the rest of his life.

As he levitated vials of Blood-Replenishing Potion out of the shelves – there were so many casualties from the battle that there was never enough – he reflected that there was a time when such news would have sent him soaring into the air and whooping like a schoolboy. His mouth quirked at that – even as a schoolboy, he had never whooped. And now, with Albus gone – gone at his own insistence, yes, gone for the greater good, yes, but still, Severus' best friend and only mentor, gone forever – there was no room for the kind of unbridled joy this news could bring, even assuming he still had the capacity to feel it.

He strode swiftly back to the operating theatre. And 'theatre' was the word – St. Mungo's, like every other Wizarding hospital in Great Britain, was so hopelessly overcrowded that even the operating theatres had been transformed into makeshift inpatient wards. Thanks to a judicious Enlargement Spell, over five hundred people lay alongside the walls, the patients currently under the wand and the surgeons operating on them protected from infection by rather ingenious germ barriers invented by those infuriating Weasley twins.

Infuriating, _but_, he caught himself automatically, worthy of respect. They'd invented many life-saving devices and were good at what they did, he had to remind himself. He had to try to 'grow up' – to get rid of irrational dislikes; it was one of the promises he'd made when he took this job…

Offhand, he'd never have put "being cleared and proved a hero" as the foremost reason for his life going down the drain. And yet, when Dumbledore's will had come out, proving his innocence with a thrice-confirmed Truth Charm of his own invention, the side of the Light – _stupid name_, he thought irritably, pounding on the lift door. _It takes forever to get here. Have to see about renewing the Levitation Charm on that when things settle down_ – where was he? …oh yes, the Light Side had been quite at a loss what to do with him. No return to spying for him: trust the idiot Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs at the _Daily Prophet_ to blazon the news across the front pages, guaranteeing that he could never afford to so much as look at a Death Eater again, never mind pretend to be spying for the Dark Lord. "Hello, I'm a spy! Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" _Not._

So the necessity had arisen, this late in life, to find not so much an occupation as a way to be useful. It was strange to move from a maligned creature of the darkness who didn't expect to survive the year to a man suddenly alone, at something of a loose end, trying to find some purpose to his life. It wasn't as though he had to worry too much, beyond basic precautions, about the Dark Lord's vengeance; the tide of the battle was turning, and Riddle had too much to worry about with blasted Potter and his idiot brigade to be settling old grievances.

But ironically, what was saving his life was the very thing taking away his chances for living. The arrogant, stupid Boy-Who-Lived hated his guts, and it was perfectly mutual, thank you very much. And since the Wizarding World had insisted on placing their hopes on a barely-of-age wizard, said wizard's opinion held a great deal of clout. Thus, he found himself not unlike a schoolboy whom nobody wanted on his team. Though he had spent the better part of his adult life fighting the Dark Lord, he couldn't join the Aurors due to 'security clearance issues' – at least he respected Kingsley Shacklebolt for taking him aside and saying, "What it really boils down to, Snape, is that no-one on the squad trusts you. Sorry." A Ministry job was out of the question for the same reason. And even though his name was officially cleared, he couldn't quite seem to get anyone to actually sign his Hogwarts reinstatement papers. The betrayal in Minerva's eyes, even as she welcomed him back and said she forgave him, had hurt more than he could have imagined. Severus knew enough of the world to know that one might forgive out of duty, but forgetting – forgetting was another matter.

Walking out of Hogwarts, Severus had been seriously starting to wonder whether he would have to end up selling Spinner's End and disappearing back into the Muggle world, when he had run into Madam Pomfrey. Pomfrey was one of the few people he could say he genuinely respected; he'd told her many times over the years that he thought she was wasted at Hogwarts. They hadn't talked: he had greeted her and she had responded, not with wariness, but with a kind of sympathetic, resigned sadness.

It was as he'd turned to go that she'd called him back.

"Yes, Poppy?" he had looked at her questioningly.

"Severus," she appeared to think better of whatever she had been going to say, "oh, never mind."

"If you have something to say, Poppy, just say it!" he said with his usual brusque demeanour, then added belatedly, "Please?"

A smile played around her lips. "Nice to know some things never change."

"Please do tell me if there is anything I can do. I would like to help _you_, Poppy," he found himself saying, emphasis on the "you."

"Well…" It was odd how hesitant his old friend seemed, then the words came tumbling out of her in a rush. "I don't suppose.. you'd be free some afternoon to come up and help us out at the hospital potions lab at St. Mungo's?"

Severus just stared at her, mystified, trying to work out if this was a job offer out of pity – not that he'd mind – or whether she really needed help. Then the 'us' registered. "So you're at St. Mungo's now," he said slowly. He couldn't help smiling.

She blushed. "Well, with Hogwarts practically deserted, I only Floo here when I'm needed. The hospital needs me. It's in a bad way, Severus," she went on, her face taking on the passionate glow she had when speaking of her work. "So many good mediwitchards have been killed or Obliviated, we're really understaffed. And You-Know-Who has killed every one of our master potions brewers. The last raid was a catastrophe, I don't know if you've heard? He got Tristram and Ismania and Abernathy and Taliesen, murdered them all when they refused to come over to his side…"

"Taliesen?" Severus lowered his head, shocked. Named after Merlin himself, the old potions brewer had been legendary. For a moment, he wondered how the _Daily Prophet_ idiots hadn't mentioned his passing – but nooo, what the Boy-Who-Lived ate for dinner was more important to them. Then the other name registered. "Abernathy? I'm sorry, Poppy, truly sorry." He took her hand in sympathy. Severus was one of the few who knew that the middle-aged mediwitch and the old potions brewer had become lovers late in life, rekindling a school crush for which Severus had, in his reckless days, once provided the Contraceptive Potion. He looked into her bright hazel eyes and saw the resignation there.

"It's all right, Severus," she said. "Thank you."

But then it sank in. Abernathy _and_ Taliesen – _and_ Tristram _and_ Ismania? _All_ of them? Involuntarily, a chill went though him.

"Poppy," he blurted, jaw dropping, "are you trying to tell me that there is not _one_ competent master potions brewer currently at St. Mungo's?"

Her face showed relief. "That's about the shape of it, yes," she nodded ruefully.

"I'm coming with you. Just give me a moment to pack my ingredients."

He turned to rush down to the dungeons – damn the Dark Lord, murder all the competent brewers, what a – a _cheek_ – well, he wouldn't give him the satisfaction, he'd brew the hospital potions if it was the last thing he did… But then he turned back, hesitating. "Poppy," he said slowly, "you know I am not too… popular."

"Pooh," she snorted. "You're the best potions brewer I know. They _need_ you." At his hesitant expression, she stepped closer to him, her beautiful eyes softening, smiling a motherly, reassuring smile. "They'll accept you in time. It will pass, Severus."

Why did he suddenly feel vulnerable? "I don't – the Aurors don't trust me, the students hate me, the Ministry is giving me the cold shoulder, the thrice-damned Boy-Who-Lived is up in arms against me…"

But Poppy just smiled that gentle smile again. "This is war. They'll just have to grow up, shan't they?" Her eyes twinkled slightly. "And so shall the rest of us. Even you and I, Severus."

Which explained why he was standing here stocking shelves with Blood-Replenisher, trying to think charitable thoughts about the two students who had been the bane of his life. Actually, he thought, walking out into the corridor, they were always brilliant wizards in their own way, even back then.

_Crack! Crack! Crack!_ Severus' stride picked up as he saw dozens of patients Apparating in from the so-called 'Final Battle' – stupid, melodramatic reporters, calling it that like something out of a novel, he fumed. He broke into a run, in a hurry to get back and get started, automatically taking stock of his ingredients and looking at the emergency patients' injuries to determine the potions he'd need, all the while keeping his promise to Poppy by dutifully acknowledging that the Weasley twins weren't all bad; it was just their association with that disgusting Potter brat…

CRACK!

The object of his thoughts Apparated a meter into his path, wailing like a banshee. Severus skidded to a halt, but not soon enough. He crashed into the damned nuisance, skidding several metres down the corridor along with the screaming boy until they crashed into a wall.

"It's the Boy-Who-Lived!" someone shouted.

"It's Harry Potter!" yelled another silly, excitable nurse

_It's a bird! It's a plane!_ Severus thought disgustedly, wanting to hex them all as he crawled out from under the noisy whelp. Disentangling himself from the teenager and pulling away, the potions master looked into Potter's face, head thrown back, every facial muscle contorted, lips drawn back from teeth, eyes squeezed shut.

_Cruciatus? _he thought briefly before he realized in disgust: _No, teenage histrionics. _His patience running out, Severus slapped him.

The boy stopped screaming immediately, his eyes snapping open to hold Snape's. But they were wild, bereft, half-crazed, as his had been when he'd lost Lily. _What? Where did that thought come from?_ His face was drawn, deathly white except for the marks of Severus' fingers, half the hair on his scalp taken off by a horrific burn. He was weeping, and as his desperate eyes locked on Snape's, he saw the flash of recognition instantly give way to an abject pleading.

Potter was begging… _him_?

"Help them," he choked out, rough voice breaking into a sob. "Please. Help them."

His eyes fell to the bundles in each of Potter's arms. How had he not noticed them before? Granger and Weasley, charred to a crisp.

"By all that has magic." He swallowed bile. They were barely recognizable as human, arms and legs twisted and blackened, the hands stick-like claws, fingers partly fused together, the feet toeless black stumps. They seemed to have been caught from behind by some sort of fire curse, as their faces and the fronts of their torsos seemed intact; their backs, from crown to toe, and all their limbs, were coal-black, charred to the bone.

"Please," Potter, gasped, sounding drained and exhausted, beginning to sob over their bodies. It was impossible to tell just by looking at them whether they were dead or alive; for a moment, he suspected that Potter had gone to all this trouble just to bring home their corpses, but as he waved his wand for a diagnostic spell, the words "Barely Alive" formed in the air above them. They still lived, then.

"Not even sure those can be saved," he muttered to himself. "Have to see what kind of curse…" Nurses and orderlies were already coming, levitating them into the operating theatre. "Get Pomfrey," he shouted to someone.

"But she's at the…"

He whipped around, fixing steely eyes on the imbecile who'd protested. "I don't care if she's beyond the veil, these two were her patients and they've been cursed by the Dark Lord himself, now MOVE!" That tone had intimidated Death Eaters. The mediwizard never had a chance. He Disapparated on the spot.


	2. Come Into My Mind

Snape rushed after Potter, who was running beside his friends as they were levitated to surgery. "What curse was used on them?" he snapped harshly. But Potter didn't answer, jogging along and whining self-indulgently as usual when there were only a few moments to save his friends' lives. Weasley, he supposed, would be no great loss, but Granger… He reached out and grabbed Potter's shoulder, spinning him round to face him. "WHAT CURSE?"

The brat's face crumpled in weakness. "I don't know. It…"

"Too busy saving your precious hide, Potter? THINK! They need you!"

The brat seemed to try to come up with some of his famous temper, but he was obviously past that, and Severus found it surprisingly easy to pity this person, half-mad with grief. "I wasn't saving... They saved me. I was…" A flicker of something showed behind the cracked spectacles as Potter seemed to remember just who he was talking to. Wordlessly, he pushed the hair out of his face, not even flinching as his hand passed over the awful burn. He leant forward and bent his head slightly as he had done before, in their Occlumency lessons.

Potter was inviting him into his mind.

It was wrong, it was stupid, it was unsafe, it was expedient, it was the fastest option they had. "_Legilimens_," Snape hissed, and fell into the teenager's mind.

--------------------------------

His first impression was of a jumbled mess: clearly, Potter had even less self-discipline than he had had when Severus had last been in his thoughts. _This is what comes of being soft on the boy_, he thought. He noticed that his thoughts were searing a path in their wake, like burning through underbrush.

"_Gently._" He felt Poppy's admonition as though she were there with him. "_Grow up._"

With an effort, he pushed his resentment aside. Immediately, the path before him cleared and the memory he sought burned like a beacon before him. Red and green and vile, it radiated pain, and he had to take a moment to steady himself before he could move closer. He wouldn't have thought the happy-go-lucky, pampered fool could bear that much pain in his empty head…

_Grow up, Severus. _

As soon as he heard and heeded the final admonition, he cleared the last hundred yards, finding himself in a ruined old house. Mansion, he amended. The three Gryffindors had apparently just destroyed the last Horcrux, Merlin knew the _Prophet_ had made enough of a fuss about there being only one left – and were sheltering their heads from falling rubble, the stone foundations shaken by what had clearly been a massive blast. It was not the futile gesture that had saved them, though, but a protective bubble that Granger was maintaining with her wand. Really, what did someone as brilliant as her see in those two idiots, he grumbled.

_All the more reason to save her life and not let your prejudices get in the way. _

But then a high, cold voice rang out: "_Expelliarmus_!"

The teenagers had barely smiled at each other when the bubble burst abruptly, and _He_ was there before them. His dreaded master whipped the trio's wands away from them. The Dark Lord appeared to have learned from his previous mistakes: he wasted no time gloating or explaining. With inhuman, impossible speed, he already had his wand pointed, and Severus found himself wondering whether the Killing Curse would be deflected once again by Lily's blood. _Avada Kedavra_, Snape recited mentally, waiting for the words.

_He_ didn't use it.

Severus gasped at the curse he did use.

It was ancient, it was elemental, from a book long burned, in a language long dead. It seared out of his wand, impossibly fast, in a show of sheer brute strength: a solid wall of molten lava, with a searing heat that would melt solid rock into slag, hurtling towards the trio with unstoppable force.

Flanked by his two friends, Harry had no time to react, no time to scream. His eyes widened – there was no time for more than that – and even as he tried to push them behind him, his two friends turned towards him as one, their eyes locked on his, their backs to the curse, their shoulders touching, shielding him with their bodies…

_That's your only talent, isn't it, Potter? _he thought bitterly. _Persuading your betters - who should know better – to die for you. _

_So much hatred, Severus_, came Pomfrey's chiding tones._ Really, where does it all come from? _

Severus was sure he saw something ripple around them as the curse hit.

Then the curse exploded, deflected, rebounding back upon its caster. Severus watched in horrified fascination as the waves of flame parted, then rushed towards Voldemort at terrible speed, taking no time at all to swallow him up without a trace. He had not even time to scream.

The flames faded, leaving nothing but a few flakes of ash on the floor.


	3. ER 1

With a jolt, Severus found himself back in the operating theatre, sitting on the floor with Potter, the harsh, gasping sobs tearing out of the boy's chest rasping across the surface of his newfound consciousness. With an ease born of long practice, he banished the searing memory – _It's true, he's dead _–_ now that I'm finally free, what the deuce do I do now _– and grounded himself. This was no time for self-indulgent contemplation. There were lives to save.

He looked up at his two newest critically injured patients, suspended face-down in mid-air in two levitation 'beds'. Mediwitchards were already there, keeping the charred bodies clinging to life, ministering to the burns. But no sooner had a burn been healed than it erupted again, deeper than before. Severus found himself shaking, but quelled it sternly. He pulled his hand from where it had been resting on Potter's knee, shoved the weeping boy aside and rose, only to find Pomfrey rising with him, her hand on his shoulder.

So that explained her voice in his mind. "You were there too," he said roughly. It was not a question.

"Yes," the mediwitch rapped out, wasting no further words. From the panicked look in her eyes, he knew she had seen the curse, and he _knew_ that _she_ would have nothing in her arsenal to counter it. "Do you know the countercurse? Any countercurse?" she said urgently.

Severus closed his eyes. The curse was so very old – it was ancient magick, since before Hogwarts – from the time before magic was written down in books, from a time when wands were unnecessary, when a wizard could use the force of his will alone to curse you into an enchanted sleep for a thousand years. He delved deeper into his memory, trying to find a cure, trying to remember. His eyes opened and he looked desperately at Poppy. "It's too old," he rasped desperately.

She held his gaze, refusing to give up hope. "Never say die, right?" she said gamely, though her voice cracked.

"Never say die," Severus repeated and raised his wand as she aimed hers.

"_Finite Incantatem!_" Nothing. "_Episkey!_" Nothing. "_Accio burn ointment!_" He knew the ointment would crash through the door to his office, and didn't care. It arrived, scattering splinters in its wake, and, flinching, he spread it over the twisted limbs. The skin soaked it up and glowed slightly for a moment, then shrank back into dry, carbonized hardness.

Pomfrey was there now with undiluted Derma-Gro. She sloshed it onto the blackened flesh. Nothing. She laid her hands on Weasley, murmuring an incantation. Nothing. "_Anaferno!_" Nothing. "_Finite!_"

"I already tried that." Severus growled with frustration. Trying to make a dent in the elemental curse with their modern spells was like pelting Quaffles at a wall of granite.

"_Benedictio! Balsamis! Panaceum!_" Pomfrey's wand crackled with magic as her voice grew increasingly frantic.

"_Accio!_" A vial of Cooling Solution snapped into Snape's outstretched hand. Poured onto Granger's back, it had no effect.

_"Santus! Benessere!"_ Pomfrey gave up on verbal spells and began trying non-verbals accompanied with fiendishly complicated wand movements, mostly consisting of drawing runes in the air.

"_Accio_!" His notes on Arabian healing spells flew into his hands. _"Bardan wa Salaman! A'uzubillah min ash-Shaytan al-Rajeem!"_ He might as well have been reciting a language lesson. Severus' stomach roiled as his wand indicated that Weasley's breathing was becoming irregular.

"We're going to lose them, Madam! We need help!" a panicked young wizard turned to Pomfrey just long enough to blurt before he turned back to the two children.

"_Specialis Revelio!_"

The spell came from the stupid boy. As though the secrets of a spell since the beginning of time could reveal themselves! Nevertheless, he found himself stepping back to see if anything would be revealed.

The Morsmordre merely rose off the burns, flickering green for a second before dissolving into thin air.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Pomfrey began.

"NO!" the idiot boy yelled, suddenly grabbing at Pomfrey's robes, gasping and pleading. "Think of something! You've got to!" He was in a state, shaking like a leaf, the pain in his eyes palpable.

But Severus had no sympathy with idiots who distracted him when he was trying to work.

"_Got_ to, have we?" he sneered. "I don't recall taking orders from _you_, Potter." He was trying to _think_. Harsher than he'd intended, he snapped: "Contrary to your experience, Potter, the world isn't just sunshine and roses. There can't always be a happy ending."

Potter spun, screaming. Severus actually flinched at the madness in his eyes. "Don't you think I don't know that? I've always known it! But I didn't want them to die for me! I'd have died rather than live without them!"

"Much as I would love to pander to your self-indulgent emotions, Potter…"

"SHUT UP!" Potter launched himself at Severus. But his volatile state rendered him weak; Severus merely deflected him with a shove, sending him reeling into Granger's 'bed'. As if it wasn't enough that he'd put them in harm's way, now the fool was endangering his friends' treatment! The mediwizard stabilizing her reeled backwards, momentarily losing his focus as Potter grabbed gruesomely onto the flesh charred dry, his tears splashing over the burns.

"Harry, we can't have this here, now. I'll have to ask you to leave," Pomfrey said gently, and Severus could hear in her voice what the diagnostic spells had already told him: They were dying. He had never cared particularly much for Weasley or the know-it-all, but he felt an unaccustomed pang nonetheless.

"Isn't there anything I can do?" the boy sobbed. "Please let me…" He bent over Granger, shoulders shaking. "Hermione…" he choked. "Ron… please…"

He wondered how much time the teenagers had left, and cast another diagnostic, bracing himself for the answer.

"Harry, dear, we've tried everything we know…"

He blinked as the answer floated up from his wand. Granger's vital signs had improved from "Sorry, Ready to Croak" to "If You Don't _Really_ Hurry, She'll Be Dead." What could have…

He looked up at Granger and found himself staring at where Potter's tears had landed. "_Look_!"

Like islands in an ocean, spots of clear, unblemished skin shone amid the charred blackness. They actually rose cliff-like above the burned areas, leading him to believe that the flesh had been completely rebuilt. Poppy and Harry whirled, following Severus' mesmerized gaze, mouths dropping open.

_Ancient magic_, Severus thought, his mind in a whirl. _No substance more powerfully magical, more ancient, than the tears of your one true beloved. _Like Lily's sacrifice, it was a magic that predated curses, predated writing even, a magic that came from the fount of creation itself. _Potter must love the Granger girl, then_, he thought; but the notion was barely formed when Pomfrey grabbed Potter's shoulders, whirling him round to face Weasley, infused with an urgency he'd rarely seen in her. "Do that again."

The stupid boy's tears were already drying at the thought of hope for his friends, but he obediently removed his damp glasses and dashed the remaining moisture from them onto Weasley's back. And damned if the same thing didn't happen! Wherever the tears landed, the flesh miraculously healed and stayed whole. A quick diagnostic confirmed it: The tears were pulling him back from the edge of death, too. Severus frowned for a moment and thought: _He loves the _boy_, then? _

But Pomfrey was excitedly moving their 'beds' together, joining Potter's hands to their blackened, twisted claws. He barely had time to register a sort of grudging admiration at the lack of disgust with which Potter held his friends' charred stumps, before he saw it.

It formed around the three of them, glowing brightly: the aura that showed him why Potter's tears had worked. Severus gulped: this was old magic indeed, and none more true. He stared at Pomfrey and saw the dawning light of triumph in his eyes reflected in her own.

But then he looked at the idiot boy and his heart sank; it would have been comical if it wasn't so serious. The blasted fool was shining with hope now, all his tears dried!

"Potter," he hissed, "you _must_ keep crying!"

"Don't be so hard on the boy, Severus!" Poppy admonished, but he had no patience with this. He rounded on the boy, taking him by the shoulders, wrenching his hands out of his friends' grip. His stomach twisted as he saw blackened pieces of finger fall to the floor, but he ignored the feeling. If he didn't get this done soon, no-one would be in a position to care, anyway.

"Potter," he hissed, "for _once_ in your miserable, worthless life you have the opportunity to actually do something useful – by sheer good luck, as everything in your life has been – and I will NOT allow these lives to be thrown away because you cannot shed a tear!"

Potter just aimed that vacuous stare at him again, dry-eyed. "But – but I can't!"

"Yes, you can! I can give you a potion that will increase your lachrymal production, but you will have to do it on your own. If I thought it would work, I would willingly use the Cruciatus on you to get the tears out…"

"Go ahead."

_Idiot Gryffindor. Fools rush in, indeed_. He grabbed Potter's shoulders and shook him. "I KNOW the NATURE of this magic, you IMBECILE! Your tears MUST be for these two idiots! I can siphon the tears off with a charm, I can engorge them up to a point, but _YOU-WILL-HAVE-TO-BLOODY-WELL-CRY_, Potter."

That blasted deer-in-the-headlights stare again. Snape rapped out a string of expletives, a single one of which would have brought the wrath of Eileen Snape, _née_ Prince, down upon his head if she had heard it, grabbed Potter's wrist and hauled him off towards his lab. "Come on."


	4. ER 2

Author's Notes:

1. Thanks to my wonderful reviewers. It makes such a fantastic difference to know one's not just broadcasting into the ozone. (Or what's left of it...)

2. Interesting Things about Writing About Harry Potter from Snape's PoV #137: You discover new and hitherto unsuspected synonyms for the word "idiot."

3. This chapter is for Leviathan. You know why.

---------------------------------------------------

Once in his lab – the newly-punched hole in the door made it that much less private, but who cared – he shoved the Lacrimus Potion at Potter. The flask contained enough for three grown men. "Drink it _all_ down," he barked, and Potter obeyed. If that didn't get a damned waterfall of tears going, he'd eat his goblin-made cauldron, he fumed. His fingers searched through some of his lesser-used potions, and he shoved another vial at the boy. "This will lower your inhibitions. Drink!" The dunce obediently upended the container before Severus could tell him about the disorientation that came as a side-effect, apparently ready to swallow anything if it would help his friends. Well, he'd just have to deal with the side-effects, then._ Stupid and obedient_, he thought scathingly. _I could poison him and he'd never know it_ –

…_Grow _up.

Siphoning off the tears was the easy part: the magical properties of tears were well known, although most potions required them from werewolves and virgins rather than swelled-headed teenagers. Pointing his wand at Potter, Severus incanted the Lacrimae Transfaersus, the standard spell for potion-use lachrymal capture. "Now try."

The nincompoop just sat there, shaking. A single tear welled at the corner of his eye; Severus watched as the spell automatically Disapparated it into his stone basin. It sat placidly at the bottom of the half-metre deep, half-metre round stone bowl, taunting Severus with its minuteness.

"Potter, you are not trying!"

"I am!" the boy shouted, looking frustrated. "The potion's not working!"

"Don't depend on the benighted potion, boy!" Snape roared. "Do it for your friends!"

The halfwit screwed up his face, trembling – whether with fear or effort Severus could not tell, but he hoped, for Granger's sake, that it was the latter. Another tear appeared at the bottom of the bowl. But there was no time for this! Snape knew he could probably taunt the dunderhead until he cried, but unless the tears were shed out of love for his friends, they would be useless. That was how the ancient magic worked.

A commotion sounded from the hallway and he moved towards the door. "Wait here," he commanded and left the room. Potter bolted to his feet – Merlin, he was too much like his detestable father to – _grow up _– and stared at Severus as he turned back to him. "What is it?" he asked, his voice raw.

"You'd better go to them," Severus said grimly. "Weasley's awake. He's calling for you." He took a deep breath. "It could happen any minute now."

Wild-eyed, Potter bolted. Severus sighed, steeled himself and Apparated to the makeshift ward ahead of him.

---------------------------------------------

"RO-ON!" He could hear the yell all the way down the corridor as he stood at the door of the operating theatre. Why did Gryffindors always have to announce their presence by all this unsubtle racket? Although this one had the right, he reflected sombrely, given the potions inside him, and what he, Severus, had to tell him.

Potter skidded into him, not even seeming surprised that Snape was there ahead of him. "Let me in," he gasped.

Despite his dislike for the boy, Snape forced himself to grasp his shoulders firmly, blocking the entrance with his body; he forced himself to look into Potter's eyes – _Lily's eyes_ – and sound sincerely regretful. "I'm sorry, Potter. It's too late. For both of them."

Those wild eyes bored into his, and he saw no arrogance there, not pride, just a terrible loss, clawing and screaming and tearing through the boy such as he had felt, many times. Yet he forced himself to go on. "We did all we could." It was a lie, yet he had to add, for the boy's benefit, "Granger said to tell you she loved you. Weasley spoke your name as he died…"

With an anguished howl that would have done his werewolf godfather proud, Potter shouldered past him, with an animal, bestial kind of abandon. Still yelling his friends' names, he burst into the room, flinging himself over Weasley's levitating body and wailing in a thoroughly undignified manner, kissing his face and hair, grabbing his body close to his and rocking him, turning to the Granger girl, sobbing over her, raining frantic, desperate kisses all over her face and eyes and burnt, clawlike hands, turning back to nuzzle the stupid Weasley's body and lift him into his embrace, weeping over him and rocking him like a babe – and what was Weasley to Potter that he should mourn him so, Severus asked himself? – then back to the Granger girl, gathering her into his arms and babbling incoherent words of affection to her as though she could hear him, and finally rushing to the wall and pounding his head and fists against it, still screaming.

Trying to ignore the raw pain he saw there, Severus raised a sardonic eyebrow. That potion certainly did a good job of removing inhibitions – not, he supposed, that the pampered nitwit had had that many to begin with.

He closed his eyes and Disapparated back to the lab. Time to see if the other potion had done as good a job.

--------------------------

He was extremely gratified to find a couple of goblets' worth in the bottom of the basin. The great thing about this potion was that it stimulated the lachrymal glands, making them produce several tears where normally they would have produced just one. Hardly as romantic as that batty old Squib Hans Andersen's tall tales, he thought wryly, sticking a ruler in to check the steadily rising balance, but necessary, if one was to tap old magic. The trouble was, he next time he Apparated back into the operating theatre, he had to have the entire quantity ready – he couldn't hinge his plan on the off-chance of the cretin shedding tears of relief. Always provided, he thought darkly, that Weasley and Granger held on; it hadn't been a lie when he said it could happen at any minute.

Watching the level rise in the basin, he realized he was chewing his nails.

Finally, the precious fluid reached the minimum level he needed. He murmured a quick spell and it increased to almost fill the stone sink, lapping against its sides. Having engorged it as much as he could – any more would risk cross-spell contamination – he then diluted it with regular water the tiniest little bit, enough to increase the amount without affecting the potency. He debated adding powdered unicorn horn, but decided against it; the ancient magic was risky enough without experimenting while people's lives were at stake. _Great Merlin's ghost, _Severus wondered, _how did St. Mungo's ever manage without a master brewer on staff?_ He levitated the basin and ran for the theatre.


	5. Fairytale

Harry was lost in his wretchedness, unable to move. There was no reason to any more: Voldemort was dead, and so was he. He had lost Ron and Hermione, which meant he had nothing left. What good was winning the war when you lost your soul? They had been his soul. No—they _were_ his soul still, and it had died with them. He…

…felt himself being lifted by the hair. The room was spinning, and for a second he couldn't tell which way was up, as though he were drugged. He was hauled to his feet, then roughly shaken while his feet scrabbled for purchase on the tiles. "They're alive," someone said.

His head snapped up, hardly daring to believe. "W-what?"

"But they won't be for long, if you don't come over her and help with the healing spell."

He could hardly see, and felt numb. But the sudden surge of hope shot him through with new life. Trying desperately to pull himself together, he stumbled over to kneel on the floor between them as they lay suspended in the air. "Take their hands. No, wait a minute," the somebody snapped. He blinked, wiped his glasses on his filthy shirt, and just managed to make out the blurred image of Snape taking Hermione's burnt, carbonised, withered claw and plunging it into a basin of water. "Yes!" he heard a voice. He thought it was Madam Pomfrey, and thought he saw her hands splashing Ron's into the bowl as well.

He could only stare as Hermione's hand emerged dripping, as perfect as it had ever been, pink and intact and gleaming. Five pink fingernails, five shiny knuckles… Dizzy with hope, he watched, heart fluttering, as Ron's larger, stronger hand emerged from the basin, pink and wet and shiny and whole. His hands were roughly pressed into each of theirs, "to complete the Nurturing Web. And don't you dare let go!" snapped a Healer, but he was crying so hard he couldn't care who.

Harry gripped their hands tightly, not needing to be told twice. He pressed them both against his cheeks, giddy with their presence, kissing Hermione's strong fingers and Ron's large, rough knuckles over and over, as he blurrily watched Pomfrey and Snape shouting jubilantly, "He's still crying!" But he didn't understand, and he didn't care. Something seemed to have turned his insides to mush, and he couldn't stop shaking and crying and kissing Ron's and Hermione's hands. He could make out plastic sheeting being spread underneath his friends. Above him, Madam Pomfrey filled a goblet from the basin and splashed it onto Ron's head with a flourish, while Snape mirrored her actions for Hermione. Harry gaped as he saw Ron's fatally charred skull starting to grow back; it was so fast that by the time he'd whipped his gaze round to Hermione, seen her flesh rebuild itself and cover up with a layer of new skin, and turned back to Ron, he could see tufts of red hair growing back onto the baby-new head. Snape raised his hand high and poured a gobletful onto Hermione's back, sloshing the liquid back and forth with his hands to cover all of the sickening, fatal injury, and Harry sobbed with relief to see new flesh blossoming everywhere; he turned to Ron, where Pomfrey, laughing with joy, was recklessly splashing more water onto his longer torso with the same effect, banishing the arid, carbonized burn-desert and leaving the pink, damp skin of Ron's beloved, familiar body in its place. Thighs, buttocks, legs, all were rebuilt, a mediwizard diligently siphoning the excess liquid off the sheet back into the basin with his wand, and Pomfrey and Severus laughing, growing steadily more thrilled and euphoric as it went on.

"Severus, it's working!" Pomfrey trilled.

"Poppy, you're stating the obvious!" Snape's voice was filled with exhilaration.

"Grow up, Severus!"

Suddenly, there was an upward pull on his hands, but Harry wasn't ready to let go; he stood, shakily, to see his friends being sat up, their twisted stumps of feet plunged deep into the stone sink. Wide-eyes, he saw the impossibly damaged limbs reforming, the black falling off like so much scale, pink toes growing, each with a perfect nail, translucent skin shining, delicate and shell-like, twinkling underwater as the rippling surface caught a shaft of reflected sunlight from the window.

It was all Harry could do not to collapse on the spot. He couldn't help it; he let out a cry of relief. With what strength he had, he stayed on his feet, and wept.

"He's going to hit the floor any moment now," Snape chuckled to Poppy. "That's all right, he can recuperate later."

"Do my eyes deceive me?" Poppy looked sidelong at Severus. "The dour Professor Snape, smiling?"

Snape rearranged his features hastily. "Don't get used to it." Yet the grin tugged at his features again, immediately, and he let it; how could he not? Naked, glowing and perfect as the day they were born, the boy and girl were propped unconscious in a sitting position, as Pomfrey splashed handfuls of healing water on any smaller spot she had missed. The very sight of them – _Adam and Eve or passengers on Noah's Ark?_ flitted across Severus' mind – was living proof that the darkness did not always have to triumph, that there was still – well, not hope, he had believed for far too long that there could never be hope, but that perhaps, _perhaps_, there was a healing water somewhere that could restore the charred and blasted desert.

Perhaps.

"Don't you want to do the honours, Harry?" Snape said into the boy's ear. The only thing that marred Granger and Weasley's newfound perfection was the hands their friend had not been holding, as they had remained on the far sides of the basin between their 'beds'; from the wrists down, they remained black, clawlike, twisted.

But the boy was too punch-drunk to react, the potion properly taking effect now, his responses slow. "Wha?" he slurred.

"Oh, for–" Snape grabbed Harry's hands, shoved each of theirs into one of his, and plunged the whole mess into the basin.

He watched, mesmerized, as their hands healed.

…He watched, mesmerized, as their hands not only healed, but started to shimmer and incandesce. Potter quietly lost consciousness, but his hand remained held fast. A strange white light glowed down each of their arms, the three strands intertwining, rising up from the surface of the water like a braided tree of silver. Severus heard Poppy's gasp and felt her hand slip into his as the healing tree continued to grow, branching out into delicate, smoky spirals, curling tendrils of light throughout the room. A smoky wisp of light curled around Severus, then Poppy, seeming to disappear into Severus' chest as he watched. The pulse of alarm he wanted to feel was dispelled by a strange influx of peace, a gentle healing pulse. And still the tree grew before his eyes: tendril blossomed upon tendril, wisp curling and branching out from smoky wisp. The mediwizards stopped what they were doing to stare, mesmerized, at the wispy ringlets, numbering into the hundreds now. Each curl wended its way towards one of Voldemort's victims lying there, wrapping itself around the patients in their makeshift beds, melting into them and making them glow briefly with a white light. He saw lesions disappearing, limbs regrowing. Severus frowned, trying to reassert his grip on the situation, and felt obliged to whisper to Poppy, "Are you sure this is in order…"

"It's what every Healer dreams of, Severus," she whispered. "Ssh."

After healing the injured in the closed ward, the tendrils slipped out under the door, presumably in search of the rest of the patients. But a few wisps of silver remained; as Severus watched, one of them shimmered and coalesced into a gigantic, powerful stag. "Potter's Patronus?" he whispered to Poppy, who nodded. As the shining animal advanced towards him, muscles rippling, Severus took a step back. He knew who else had had a stag Patronus, and had no illusions about how that man had felt about him.

But the dignified animal came to Severus, and knelt at his feet, majestic head bowed.

Severus' mouth dropped open. He knew Patronii couldn't talk independently, but he could swear he heard a voice in his head:

_Forgive. _

_Forgive? Not bloody likely, _Severus snarled before he could stop himself. _You didn't just torment my youth - you ruined my life, Potter. _

_And my own._

_Eh? _Severus blurted most unsophisticatedly.

_The dead know karma, Snape. Let me show you the paths it takes. _

Severus had never performed Legilimency on a Patronus before, but in a flash, he was in the silver mind, floating blue on a cloud, high above the world. His mouth dropped open as he saw the chakras and the katras far below him shining with human energy, lines sparking from one to the other like firework trails in broad daylight.

_Even Muggles sometimes see this, Severus. _The silver voice was almost friendly. _'How it's all connected', Sting called it. Ringo Starr said, 'What goes around comes around…'_

Snape rolled his eyes. _Is everything definable in terms of Muggle rock music?_

The Patronus shrugged. _Just trying to make it easier. Suit yourself..._ With a _whoosh_, all the trails faded out save for his, James' and those connected to them. Like following a luminous trail between lighted points on a map, he saw it: that if James and Sirius had not tormented him and destroyed his youth with their bullying, he would not have been embittered enough to turn to the Dark Lord; if he had not, Voldemort would never have known about the prophecy, for he had been the one to tell Him; _if the prophecy had remained a secret, I would still be alive and Lily would not have had to give her life for Harry, and the chain of events that sent Sirius to his death at the Department of Mysteries would never have been set in motion. I lost you your best friend and the woman you adored and your youth and a good part of your adult life - the illuminated karma lines glowed fiercely - in return, I lost the mother of my son, Lily, the beautiful, beloved wife I died to protect, lost my life, orphaned my son and left him alone in the world, doomed my dearest friend to languish for years in the most horrible place on earth, and finally got him killed as well, depriving my son of a godfather in the process - and all as payment for my childhood arrogance and cruelty. Their deaths are on my conscience too, Severus. If you find that a sufficient price to pay, forgive. If not, I understand._

Severus' mind was reeling, yet he managed to get in one last argument: "Don't consider yourself absolved just because you died. You died loved, with your family. Sometimes to go on living is worse than death."

But the silver stag seemed perturbed not at all. _I know, Severus. You of all men will understand me when I say that the torments of conscience are worse than the Cruciatus. I feel them every day. You know I am not a ghost; but I know you are aware that Wizarding dead can sometimes linger a while to observe from afar, particularly if they were from their flesh and blood untimely ripped. I have seen how my son has suffered;_ (Severus snorted) _but I have also seen your suffering, all of it. I have seen all the hells you have gone through to atone for Lily's death, and believe me, I revere you for it. I am not here to play some silly game of one-upmanship as to who has suffered the most; I would only have you take some solace in the knowledge that I have been punished too. _

For a long time in the timelessness, Severus just stood there, staring at the "map". He watched the luminescent trails coruscate from one point of light to anther, bringing people together, joining their fates. Inwardly, he swore. How could he have been so blinded by his bitterness that he'd failed to see the karma that had rebounded on his tormentor, far worse than anything he could have planned deliberately? How was it that thick-headed, self-centered James Potter had seen it where Slytherin-subtle Severus hadn't?

_Oh, don't worry about that, Severus,_ the Patronus smiled (Smiled? How the deuce did he smile?) _The dead see more than the living. And please don't judge me by my childhood self; unlike you, _I_ never had a chance to grow up._

Severus felt his "face" grow unaccountably hot as the Patronus bowed his head again.

_Healing cannot begin without forgiveness, Severus. You know that, most of all._

_"Oh, all right," _Severus muttered irritably. But the Patronus remained kneeling, head lowered.

_Bless. _

_Even as a Patronus, the Potter gene can't leave bloody well enough alone, can it?_ "Now isn't that taking it a bit too far? Bless whom, pray tell? Potter the Arrogant, Sadistic Prat or Potter the Boy-who-remained-Clueless? "

"Severus, _really_!" Poppy chided gently. Her voice seemed to snap him out of a trance. The stag's eyes flickered to his and Poppy's joined hands, and Severus could have sworn he waggled an eyebrow.

Severus dropped Poppy's hand like a hot coal. Elemental magic or not, he could give as good as he got. "Now look here, you interfering, officious ungulate…"

A bolt of amusement from the stag. I _shall give _my_ blessing, then._ And he tossed his regal head and was gone, galloping straight out of the window of St. Mungo's.

"What was that all abou…" But of course, now a shining ephemeral otter came to Pomfrey, frolicking in mid-air, while a little silver Jack Russell terrier gambolled towards him, and finally licked Severus' face. "Weasley's?" he spluttered, trying to bat the affectionate animal away. Pomfrey nodded. "Should have known," he muttered as the frisky puppy frolicked off and disappeared, making playful circles around the otter until both were out of sight.


	6. Creature Comforts

Safely ensconced in his Potions lab once more, Severus Snape did something he'd only very rarely done before: acknowledge that he was dead beat.

He settled back into the hard-backed wooden chair, completely drained of the energy to move an inch. "God," he groaned, in a Muggle expression of fatigue he hadn't let slip for twenty years or more. Why he should be so tired, he had no idea, Severus thought. He'd watched entire families being butchered. He'd taken the Cruciatus until he had prayed for death, not once but many times. He's seen the woman he adored killed through his own fault, he'd killed his most loved and trusted friend with his own hand. Yet he had never felt as tired as he did today.

_Maybe you've never seen a miracle before, Severus. _

_I'm a wizard, _he snapped at the inner voice._ Miracles are merely acts of magic viewed by fools. _

But it didn't change the fact that he was tired, far, far too weary to even consider trudging out to the extra-hospital Apparation point to head back to Spinner's End. Oh well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd kipped at St. Mungo's, babysitting a potion or helping the overstrained medi's – in fact, he could count the nights he'd spent at Spinner's End this past month on the fingers of one hand. With a practiced motion, he reached behind him with his wand to Transfigure the hard chair into a bed. Institutional metal rails sprung up around him, plastic crackled beneath him, and he frowned as the hospital-issue mattress creaked. _That's what comes of having hospital beds on the brain when you do Transfiguration_, he grumbled to himself. _Oh well, a bed is a bed is a bed_. He couldn't understand why he was being so peevish at what had to be a minor discomfort when he'd faced so much worse; possibly it was the contrast of the sterile whiteness with the miraculous transformation he'd witnessed today.

Severus snorted. Right now, a hundred vapid reporters armed with a hundred inane Quick-Quotes Quills were probably going quietly berserk, penning headlines of ST. MUNGO'S PATIENTS MYSTERIOUSLY HEALED! Well, the healing would _stay_ mysterious, he set his jaw, at least until he had sufficient time to set down the results in a manner scientific enough for _Potions Quarterly_. He doubted that the august old journal would accept an article from the notorious Severus Snape, traitor – probably think it was a poison in disguise or something – but his erstwhile alter-ego, German master-brewer Eberhard Prinz, would have no trouble getting it published. Though the results would probably vary depending on the strength of the bond, he mused absently as he removed his boots, it was a magic worth tapping, particularly with Dark curses where all other means had failed. His fingers worked on the buttons of his robes as he wondered whether Frank and Alice Longbottom, in particular…

His moving fingers paused. He had been about to strip off his robes, but now it occurred to him that anyone could see him through the hole the potion bottle had made when it smashed through his door earlier. "_Reparo_," he ordered with such alacrity that the splinters positively crackled as they rebuilt the hole in the smooth, thin wood, built more to give an illusion of privacy than for any real solidity. Great, now he could undress.

But something was nagging at him: disproportionately irritating, the door's hospital-white lacquered surface was now marred by a patch of shiny, unpainted wood. That was the trouble with Repairing Charms on wooden surfaces: the grain healed, but you couldn't get the paint to re-form. As he stripped off his work robes and donned softer ones for sleeping, Severus kept staring at it, wondering why it bothered him so much; perhaps because it reminded him of scars, or burns? Even seeing the wood bare would be infinitely preferable to this disfigured surface. Shrugging, Severus flicked his wand and somewhat sheepishly incanted the spell inadvertently invented by Alfie Prince, his Muggle-born third cousin twice removed, and which had first told Alfie, the world, and Mr. and Mrs. Lovett, whose house he'd been painting at the time for extra pocket-money, that he was a wizard: "Be a duck and sandblast yerself for me, won't yer?" _Somewhat unorthodox, but effective,_ he thought, turning his face sideways to avoid the paint that practically flew off the door. _Can always have it painted la..._

The sanding spell subsided, revealing a marvellous, rich expanse of glowing, carved oak. Severus breathed in sharply, admiring the depth and beauty of the woodgrain. The surface shone with the connection to Mother Earth only preserved by wood from magical-sourced trees, a rarity in this day and age. The timbers of some healing places on the Continent, he knew, particularly in Eastern Europe, were built with just such wood, to tap the Gaeian healing forces inside. "And they painted over _this_!" he heard his own indignant voice ring out.

For a moment, Severus debated the issue with his own creaking bones, then rose from the bed to press his face closer to the door. Yes - just visible still etched into the wood were the runes for healing, health and strength, in a masterful, ancient script – _very old craftsmanship, surely, _flitted across his mind. He shook his head in disbelief. What Ministry dunderhead's idea had it been to paint this work of art white? He stood back, staring at the fabulous workmanship – the doorframe had obligingly stripped itself of paint as well, and a delicate tracery of ancient script caught the light here and there.

Severus couldn't deny it: the fabulous, ancient magic and living-vibrant wood just looked too out of place in the sterile surroundings. He'd long taken issue with the hospital tendency to paint things white - too much like a shroud, he thought, and stifling to boot. Nothing for it; his magic-drained body would just have to perform one more spell. Swearing inwardly, he raised his wand to the walls, concentrating, and murmured: "Now turn a nice shade of emerald green for us, won't yer, ducks?"

He silently thanked his cousin Alfie as the sterile white paint rippled and turned a marvellous, shadowy forest green, multilayered and shifting-patterned, velvety and mysterious as the whispering leaves of the Forbidden Forest itself. Now that was more like it, he thought: much more sober and profound than that garish, stark white. It was easy to lose yourself in the depths of green, exactly the shade of Lil…of…

_Potter's eyes. _

He swore. Trust James Potter's offspring to ruin the most pleasant moments! Taking a deep breath, he reined his feelings of distaste. _Carpe diem_, he told himself; it's a perfectly good Slytherin colour, and I won't let my fancies get in the way of my enjoying it! With that, he marched back to bed, flopped down onto his back and raised his wand to incant "Nox," eyes fixed on the ceiling. Maybe now he could get some sleep!

But immediately he glanced at the ceiling, he saw that now there was another problem; the gorgeous healing-tree door and forest-green walls looked about as good with the St. Mungo's flat institutional ceilings, complete with their bland Permaglow Charm, as the Dark Lord would look in a powder-blue playsuit with bunnies all over it. Sighing, he raised himself up on his elbow one last time. _It's only a minor change_, he told himself as he flicked his wand upwards to create the illusion of a high, vaulted ceiling with bright, blazing torches. Their light, strong but not garish, sent shadows leaping over the greenness, and for an instant he could have sworn he saw a unicorn in the distance.

Severus settled back into bed, a sense of profound satisfaction stealing over him._ Now this is what a Potions laboratory should look like,_ he thought. "Nox," he said finally, settling down to sleep. As the plastic crackled under him again, he amended: _Only I'll have to see about getting a decent bed._ Idly, he ran measurements and dimensions through his head: his old Hogwarts four-poster would probably fit comfortably into the adjoining room Poppy had been promising him he could have for a sleeping area as soon as the glut of cursed and wounded had decreased. _Have to get a decent desk, too,_ he thought, conducting a quick mental inventory of his Hogwarts things; _that old one was just falling apart, not worth salvaging. I really need a couple of armchairs, have to see if Minerva'll let me have the ones in my study. Those were the most comfortable ever, though technically they're still Hogwarts property. The bookcases are oak, they'd probably fit in splendidly here, next to the… _

Severus Snape brought himself up short, stunned.

He was making _plans_.

For _furniture_.

He lay flat on his back, eyes wide open and staring into the darkness. He'd been making plans to _move in_ and _redecorate_. Him, Severus Snape. He exploded in a vicious snort. What was next, matching towels?

A treacherous part of his mind immediately jumped in and said that yes, some nice fluffy dark green towels would probably be much nicer than the standard-issue understaffed under-funded St. Mungo's threadbare grey-white towels he currently used, _and why not some bottle-green Egyptian cotton sheets while you're at it,_ before he quashed the voice so violently that it yowled like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. I AM SEVERUS SNAPE! he roared at the voice. I HAVE LIVED MY LIFE IN DANGER AND DISTRESS, AND NEVER HAD TIME TO THINK ABOUT SUCH FRIPPERIES AS…

_Perhaps a nice Persian rug?_ niggled the voice.

_Right, and get caustic potions eating holes all over it, _Severus retorted._ Plain flagstone's perfectly fine, thank you very much, and… _"What's happening to me?" he wondered aloud, dazed. For decades now, he had never been one for creature comforts. Why, seemingly at a stroke, was he suddenly going all _Good Housekeeping_? In one evening, he'd sanded his door, painted the walls, glamoured the ceiling, planned the layout of the spare bedroom and was now thinking about _soft furnishings_!

"This is ridiculous!" he snapped into the darkness. _I can't afford the time or energy to get complacent and start setting up housekeeping… _

_Can't_, the niggling voice insinuated, _or_ **_won't?_**

_What's that supposed to mean? _

_You have eschewed creature comforts because you have never seen yourself as a creature deserving of comfort. Asceticism, deprivation; as long as you were bound to the Dark Lord, it's been the only way you knew how to live. Well, the Dark Lord is dead. Isn't it about time you thought about living like a human being? _

_I am not one. I have killed… _

_And tortured untold masses, yes, yes. Sold my soul to the devil, killed Dumbledore. Eternal burden of guilt, and so forth. I get the idea. One day you may decide to get help for all that Gryffindor thinking, but in the meantime, why don't you get some sleep and we'll think about those curtains in the morning? _

That was probably a good idea, thought Severus. He was fast asleep when the thought popped across his subconscious mind:

**_Curtains? _**


	7. Awakenings

Harry's eyes were burning. They really, really _hurt!_

He opened his eyes blearily. Somewhere, a monitoring spell beeped. His vision was worse than usual. His head was pounding, too, and he could hardly--

_Ron! Hermione! _He bolted up out of bed wildly, sheer terror blasting away the pain like so much mist. He looked about him frantically, then collapsed into a heap of relief, seeing them lying peacefully asleep on either side of him.

For long moments he stared, hardly daring to blink, then dragged himself up into a semi-reclining position against the headboard, taking one of their hands in each of his, feasting his eyes on Ron's sleep-slack features, every freckle on his smooth face a celebration, drinking in the sight of Hermione's living flesh, her lashes fluttering on rosy cheeks, smiling with every breath she inhaled. He gripped their hands more tightly, nestling their fingers warmly into his palms, and tried to recollect what had happened yesterday. It was very difficult to remember; there had been Vold—

And it all came crashing back.

"_Oh_—" He whimpered as the memory of the awful blast rocked him. He began to hyperventilate, not caring as the image roared through his mind. He had died, Voldemort had died. And his friends had – they'd shielded, oh no oh NO, the BURNS – what had – He began to shudder and felt his eyes burn again as flashes came back to him: that half-crazed Apparation; yes, he remembered Apparating, and then Snape— "He told me they were dead!" he yelled, but even as he said it, storming into his consciousness was the knowledge that it had been the only way to save them. Who would have thought there were uses for Slytherin cunning…

The monitoring spell around his bed was emitting a high-pitched trilling noise now, and a number of mediwitchards were running full-tilt towards his bed. Ron's eyes fluttered open, and Harry, still trembling, gripped his hand tighter, bending over so that he could use his face to touch Ron's hair without having to let go of Hermione's hand. "'S all right," he murmured to Ron, awkwardly stroking the ginger thatch with his cheek, before the bewilderment could fully replace the sleep in the blue eyes. "Hermione's OK, we're all fine."

But Ron's bleary eyes fixed on Harry's scalp. "Y're hurt, mate," he slurred. His face held a certain pain for Harry. "Y'need to get that seen to…" Half-conscious, the tall redhead maneuvered awkwardly until his head rested on the slope between Harry's neck and shoulder, turning so that he lay on his side, his warm body pressed up close against Harry's, and wrapped an arm around both him and Hermione.

"Should we move them?" a mediwizard shrilled.

"You mad? Pomfrey'd have our guts for garters," retorted another. "Just give them the First Awakening potions."

Snuggled up against Ron, holding Hermione's hand, Harry hardly felt it as potions were shoved down his throat. "H'rry? Ron?" a feminine voice mumbled. Drifting again, he felt rather than saw her rise urgently from sleep, only to be downed by a Sedative Charm – but not before she had shifted and turned, as Ron had, and snuggled into Harry's other side, wriggling like a contented cat under Ron's hand, which patted her shoulder absently. Her gaze alighted warmly on the two of them, sympathy flickering across her face as she looked at him. "Harry, your head…" she murmured before drifting off again.

"'S all right, H'mione," Ron muttered, going under again. "You should have seen the other fellow…"

It was over. He was free.

Harry had a brief flash of wondering what on earth he was supposed to do with his life now before the potions laid him flat on his back for another eight hours.

* * *

_Severus, hello. _

Poppy's voice. His head jerked up off the pillow. Somewhere in his mind, he registered from the noise level around him that he had not only slept through the night, but well into the morning. Good Lord, he was decadent. But that was hardly the problem now, not with Poppy in his head. _Since when can you read minds?_

_Since… yesterday_. She hastily clarified: _Not with everyone. Just… I think the people you were using Legilimency on, and since I was included in the link… _She trailed off_. I don't mean to intrude, I just wanted to know how to turn it off. I waited for you to wake up, and…_

He frowned. It wasn't that Poppy's presence in his mind was unwelcome, but this business of people prancing in and out of his head had never been something he particularly approved of._ It's all right, Poppy. I can turn it off with Occlumency. Look, I'm going to Occlude now. Could you Floo me in five minutes?_

He jumped out of bed, used a series of charms to Transfigure the bed back into a chair, himself into some semblance of decency befitting a visit from a lady ("An old warhorse like me, a lady?" Poppy had laughed once. Severus had responded stiffly: "Unlike some people, _I_ have had a proper upbringing," although the peals of laughter this had elicited had not been the response he'd hoped for), and the room back into – He paused in mid-incantation. No, he wouldn't be a hypocrite. This was the way he liked his Potions dungeon – lab, he corrected – and if St. Mungo's didn't like it they could lump it. He'd surreptitiously been following real estate values in the Muggle world, and prices were rising, so it wasn't as though he was so out of options that he had to sacrifice his personal taste to some ignoramus of an 'interior designer' who probably didn't know his wand from his—

"Oh, how lovely!"

Severus looked from Pomfrey's admiring gaze to the ceiling back to the fireplace, and quirked a half-smile. "Wasn't sure you'd approve."

"Oh, I love it. I've always found dark-coloured walls sophisticated."

He wasn't entirely sure whether "thank you" would be appropriate, as he wasn't the one who'd invented dark-coloured walls, so he settled for a grunt.

Thank Merlin the mediwitch was used to his moods; she merely smiled. "Sleep well?"

"Like the dead," Severus admitted. "Sorry, there must have been a lot of work to do…"

"Not for us," Poppy explained. "For the medi's it's merely been a matter of checkups. But the paperwork to get a thousand patients out at once has been another matter. We've had to take on a dozen Hogwarts seventh years as temporary help to process the number of patients leaving, hired a public relations witch to fend off the press.. It's big news, you know. Over a thousand patients hit by Dark curses, miraculously cured."

"Hmm." Severus didn't even want to contemplate the strength of the love that would cause that to happen. Best left for the _Potions Quarterly_ paper. He focused instead on trivialities. "Who did you take on?"

"Oh, you know them, I think: the Creevey brothers, Robins, Smith…"

"What about the PR witch?"

"Lovegood."

"WHAT?!" Snape burst out. "_Luna_ Lovegood?"

"Ye—"

"Ravenclaw, blonde hair, bulging eyes, once commentated on the shape of the clouds at a Quidditch match?"

"I don't really watch Quidditch, I'm usually stocking the infirmary for after th…"

"Wonderful!" moaned Severus, running his hands through his hair. "Marvellous! Since when is she a public relations expert?"

"Well, her father…"

"Is an addle-pated old COOT!" bellowed Severus. "And she's a chip off the old block! She's probably out there right now, feeding the reporters some impossible line about…" A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as the irresistible hilarity of the situation struck him. "…Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and… gum disease…" A chuckle bubbled up out of him as Pomfrey looked at him in bewilderment, "…in fact… they deserve each other."

Gripped with a sudden impish desire, he moved towards the Floo. "Where is the press conference being held?"

* * *

"Ms Lovegood!" called a reporter. "Is it true that Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who?"

The newly appointed press secretary smiled serenely. "Harry Potter," she smiled. "Or Harry Weasley, really. Why should witches take their husbands' names? Ginny doesn't seem to be the sort of girl to stand for that."

"What?"

"She's in Spain now, finishing up the fighting in Alhambra," Luna said earnestly. "They let her off her classes because they found her special powers, you know, seventh daughter and all that. Proves that seventh son business is all just silly, doesn't it?"

One of the reporters cleaned out his ear while another picked up his Quick-Quotes Quill and shook it. "But the Final Battle? Were there Aurors present with the Boy-who-Lived?"

Luna stared at him seriously. "You know the Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy." As Snape shook with silent laughter, she went on to explain how their strategy was to bring down the Ministry from within "using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease."

One of the reporters apparently had a brainwave. "Er, Miss Lovegood, were you yourself at the Final Battle? Perhaps hit by a hex or some such?"

Poppy glared. "That's insulting!" she hissed in an aside to Severus.

"She can take care of herself." Severus found himself grinning. _Grinning_!

Her eyes took on a dreamy gaze. "That's an interesting question. Was I?"

"Yes, were you?"

Luna regarded the reporter with perfect equanimity. "Perhaps. What do you think?"

"Um, well…"

"Because you know, if the theory of relativity is correct – marvellous Muggle theory, really – it would dictate that I was."

"So you were."

"Or that I wasn't."

"So were you or weren't you?"

"At the same time."

"What?"

"Depending on the relative positions of matter at the time. So really, there's an alternate reality where I was there, somewhere, depending on the number of different outcomes that can happen like a ripple in the water."

One reporter at the back of the room chewed on his quill. Another ripped up her parchment. A third conjured an ear-trumpet. "A ripple?" the first reporter tried, valiantly.

"Yes. The only question is, are we one of the alternate realities, or the main one? Because it stands to reason," she said, settling more comfortably on her chair, "that the people in every reality would think that theirs was the correct one and that the others are the alternates, doesn't it?"

A reporter at the back stood up with a nasty scowl. "Look, Miss Lovegood, stop dancing around the issue! What about the Boy-Who-Lived?"

"Ah, but you see? He may not have lived."

"Harry Potter is DEAD?" screamed one reporter.

"But I thought he killed the Dark Lord!" yelled another.

Luna was still talking about alternate realities as a few of the more excitable reporters stampeded for the door.

Poppy gave Severus a hard stare. "Severus, take this paperwork and go back to bed if all you're going to do here is slide down the wall laughing."


	8. Come Into My World

Notes: Um. Chapter. Here. Hope it works, am a bit nervous about this one...

Additional note: Part of Severus' monologue in the first half is adapted from Chris Suellentrop's Slate article entitled: "Harry Potter: pampered jock, patsy, fraud."

* * *

Safely barricaded in his room from the pandemonium outside, Severus sighed, looking up from his ingredient requisition forms. It was late; he'd been doing paperwork for the better part of the afternoon, and now it was early evening. He toyed with the idea of Flooing the kitchens for something to eat, but decided to wait until he'd finished the task at hand. He had no idea why he was so tired: he'd done nothing but laze about all day. He pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then looked back at the shelves, shaking the jar of belladonna extract. _Belladonna extract – 125 grams_, he thought to his quill across the room; the ostrich plume obediently filled in the appropriate box on the parchment lying on the table. He moved to another jar and shook it. _Dried arrowroot – 2 kilos_, the quill scratched on the paper. _Powdered unicorn horn – 250 kilos. _

What? Hold on, that couldn't be right. He walked over to the form where it lay on the preparation table and scanned it, frowning. He scratched the offending line out and wrote: _Powdered unicorn horn – 250 grams._

Losing concentration. Not a good sign. Acknowledging he needed a break, he sank down tiredly into his chair. His amused euphoria from watching the reporters get what they deserved had long since faded, replaced by a kind of post-excitement let-down. It was damned disorienting to be thinking of the miracle – _not a miracle, not a miracle, just ordinary magic_, he thought – every five minutes. To top it all off, after the fiasco with the press, the entire journalistic complement of the Wizarding World was clamouring for an interview with the Boy-Who-Lived.

Severus tiredly Summoned a bottle of Firewhisky and Transfigured a mortar into a glass, pouring himself a stiff one. "The Boy Who Lived," he murmured, taking a sip. A curiously passive accomplishment, Severus mused as the liquor flowed into his veins, akin to "The Boy Who Showed Up." The fuss should have been about Lily, not her son, he thought, allowing the old familiar annoyance to creep back. It was Lily who'd sacrificed her life. There was nothing special about Potter; having had the dubious pleasure of teaching him for years, he should know. Just another dunderheaded halfwit who shirked as much homework as possible; nothing brilliant or even diligent about him. Granger, while not brilliant, was at least hardworking, and he was willing to wager she'd done most of the Horcrux-hunting, helped along by the information he'd managed to pass along to the Order before Dumbledore's benighted will. Potter was a fraud, a glory hound who unfairly received credit for the accomplishments of others. He didn't even have proper respect for authority; a singularly poor soldier, bad at taking orders, no deference to superior age or knowledge at all, always assuming he knew better than anyone else, always content to go haring off on some scheme or other without consulting those who _did_ know better. Everything Potter had done, including defeating the Dark Lord, was a combination of sheer luck and being loved.

Which brought him back to that irritating question. Who the hell was Harry Potter to warrant that kind of love, anyway? Who was Harry to have his redheaded sweetheart survive when his own had died? Potter had never done an honest day's work in his life. Everything was given to him on a silver platter. What did he know of hardship, of fighting to survive, what did he know of hard work? Nothing, Severus snorted. And now he had his friends back, as well as the adoration of the Wizarding world. Not that he regretted having fought so hard for their lives, of course, but Potter had been spared even the relatively small pain of having to deal with loss. Oh well, he thought, sipping at his drink, there were those who were born lucky and never had a day's hardship in their lives, and those who had everything snatched away from them. Life was so unfair.

"Severus?"

"Yes, Poppy?" He looked up to see her face in the Floo. Her hair was a violent neon pink. On her shoulder perched an Asian boy, his hair a similar screaming shade. "What happened to you?"

"Do you think you could just check on Hermione and Ron and Harry?" she asked. "We've got a case of Fuchsia Fever in the children's ward, it's all the excitement, I think, and I can't spare a moment, and someone ought to check on them in the next half-hour. The medi's have already given them all their potions and everything, but I'd feel better for knowing someone senior with experience was…"

"All right, all right." He heaved himself up from the desk, downing half his drink in one gulp. Lord knew if he was going to face the Brat-Who-Lived, he needed a little liquid fortification.

* * *

The operating theatre was quiet when Severus stepped in, in sharp contrast to the corridors. He'd had to walk through pandemonium to get there, milling throngs of patients leaving and families on every floor. He'd given his best billowing-black-shadow impression and managed to slice through the crowds like water, pushing aside a tiny pang at all the happy reunions and tears of joy. Such things were not his lot. They were just not meant to be. 

In here, though, it was peaceful. All the makeshift beds had been cleared away, leaving a large, empty room, roughly the dimensions of a Muggle school gym. A gentle twilight reigned, magically maintained after sunset; the hall was bathed in a soft pearly grey, the floor reflecting the quiet glow. A soothing breeze, laden with the scent of wildflowers and herbs, swirled and eddied across the room – and mixing the potion for that had been a right pain in the neck, he thought uncharitably. Still, it was a welcome change from the metallic scent of blood and the acrid tang of potions, not to mention the stench of rotting curse-scars and burning flesh. Severus hated to admit it, but the room was calming him.

The brat's bed had been pushed all the way off to one side, surrounded by monitoring spells. Severus stepped close to it, letting his footfalls ring on the tile; if he knew his potions, they'd be knocked out till at least tomorrow morning. No need to be quiet.

His lip curled as he looked down into the bed. Granger and Weasley were snuggled into either side of Potter like babes in their mother's arms, a look of such profound contentment on their features, even in sleep, that he felt an inexplicable pain in his heart. Banishing it with the ease of long practice, he flicked his wand, reading the diagnostic spells. Disregarding the wand's "and it's a bloody miracle they're alive at all, mate" – his wand had always tended to be a bit on the snarky side – he scanned the medical information and nodded briefly. Healing well, all except the nasty burn on Potter's head. That would have to wait until his friends awoke and were well enough for him to coax a few tears out of them. Severus wondered why someone like Potter, so used to getting his own way, hadn't insisted they heal him. But that didn't jibe with the hysteria Potter had shown when he'd been told his friends were dead, Severus thought almost reluctantly. Well, he supposed, even the most spoilt brat had people he genuinely cared for.

Severus stared down at the face that so resembled his hated enemy's, eyes closed and muscles sleep-slack, and wondered what there was about this spoilt brat that made the Wizarding world lose its senses, what it was that inspired such love. He was missing a piece of the puzzle. He knew it.

Shaking his head, Severus thought, _I'm getting silly in my old age_. Well, spoilt brat or no, there was no need for the burn to get infected. He palmed a handful of his specially brewed antiseptic salve, and laid his hand on Potter's brow, intending to spread it onto Potter's burn.

He never managed it. The moment he touched the boy's head, he felt himself falling, as though he were looking into a Pensieve.

* * *

"What the—" 

Severus had to blink a second before he got his bearings. A Muggle primary school, he could see, and a pretty suburban one at that. It was break, by the looks of it: the children were all in the playground, clustered in a loose circle watching some game, he supposed. Football? But no – there was something crackling in the air that Severus' Legilimency picked up on at once: predatory excitement, something primal, fear.

He supposed he should be more surprised, but the alcohol in his system was hitting now, calming him. A memory, eh? He thought. Let's have a look…

He moved closer. His instincts had been true: the children had cleared the floor for an extremely fat boy, a stocky blonde boy and a scrawny little midget. The midget was being held captive by another blond boy, arms twisted up behind his back, fighting tears, by the looks of it. Severus watched the drama with quickening, though mild, interest; even though he couldn't quite see what this had to do with Potter, he tended to identify with children being bullied. As was normal with Pensieve-generated memories, he found himself able to slip through the tightly-packed crowd of chilren to get a better view.

"I'll prove it to you!" the thick blonde boy was crowing to someone in the crowd. The midget struggled harder and his captor twisted his arm up a hitch, hard enough to dislocate.

"You're just talking through your hat, Dudley," said a tall boy with coffee-coloured skin. "Bet you a quid you're making it up."

"A quid? Why not a fiver?" the fat boy who had been addressed as Dudley shot back with a confident smirk. Snape began to seethe at the conversation they were holding while the small boy was being held captive, his shoulders and elbows stretched to breaking point. His own arms were beginning to ache in sympathy. But the boy had the pride and discretion of a Slytherin, he noted: while he lacked the brute force to escape, he refused to give his captors the advantage by showing his weakness. His face was an impassive mask.

"A fiver it is," said the boy who'd suggested the bet. "But if you don't show us right now, the bet's forfeit!"

Dudley smirked in triumph, then turned to the crowd with the air of a showman. "As you know, today's bet was that Potter's so pathetic he even has to wear hand-me-down yellow pants..."

Severus' mouth dropped open. He stared at the black-haired boy. _Potter_? But then who was...

"...because his parents didn't leave him enough dosh to buy any of his own! So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen..."

'Dudley'? Snape had heard of a cousin, but surely this couldn't be...

"Why don't you tell them the truth, Dudders?" the little boy's -Potter's- voice rang out. "That you're growing sideways so fast they've given up on Marks and Sparks and started getting you fitted at Omar the Tentmaker's!"

_Typical_, thought Snape, glad of something to hold onto._ Same as his father, mocking the fat boy for something he can't help, the situation ought to be humiliating but it's water off a duck's back to him..._

The cheers - or was it jeers? - from the crowd broke his train of thought to show that Dudley had made good on his threat. Potter stood there, his trousers pulled down to his ankles, kicking and fighting furiously but ineffectually. Underneath the trousers was a pair of pants so baggy that his waist could have fitted into each leg. Tied in place with an old bootlace, the material around the waist was so tightly gathered that the garment resembled bloomers more than anything else; the resemblance was more pronounced because the pants in question were bright yellow with polka-dots all over them.

Potter's face burned.

It burned scarlet with humiliation; it burned with shame; it burned with anger and indignation. Perhaps it was the boy's magic, but in that moment, all he could see was flame.

The cheers had devolved into a chant, and Severus was reminded again how children could be like savages, moving in for the kill on any one of their number who had appeared weak: "Pot-ter's a wal-ly! Pot-ter's a wal-ly! Pot-ter's a wal-ly!" He found himself trembling, thinking back to that awful day at Hogwarts. He knew it was a memory, but that would not have stopped him pulling out his wand and raining ineffectual hexes upon them had Potter not suddenly stamped on the foot of the boy holding him. As he yelped in pain, his captive took the chance and darted off as though the hounds of Hades were after him.

But he didn't get very far; the pants pooled around his ankles meant he thudded to the ground not a metre from the big boy, who wasted no time in sitting on his chest. "Ah, ah! Can't have you running off now!" Dudley crowed. Severus found himself feeling very cold. The little boy was fighting for breath, in real danger of dying. The fat boy was cutting off his air supply. _Don't be ridiculous! _he told himself_. Potter is alive, there's no danger of his dying. Even if this isn't a dream, which it is, this can't have happened to famous Potter, this only happens to unfortunates like me… _

The fat boy had hold of the waistband of Potter's pants and was pulling them down. The children chanted and jeered. Potter squealed like a stuck pig. Snape turned away. This was too much like his worst nightmare.

"I'll kill him!" yelled a strong voice.

Snape whipped round. Ah, maybe help had arrived for the boy. A red-headed teacher, tall and powerful with it, pounded across the playground. Severus waited for him to put a stop to the bullying; eyes down, he listened for the teacher's shouts that would tell him this farce was over, but instead he only heard, "I swear I'll kill him, Hermione! Let me go! Let me go to his family's house when we're out of St. Mungo's and strangle him!"

_Ah,_ Snape realized, decidedly unchuffed. _How weaker than a pink blancmange it is to hear a Weasley's rant. _

Standing right in his path were Granger and the Weasley, blocking his view of the screaming boys. She was holding him back as he struggled ineffectually. Well, he'd have none of it; he'd conduct this silly dream, if dream it was, on his own terms! "Would you mind stopping all that racket and getting out of the way?" he said, pleasantly enough.

They both whipped round in shock, and the memory stopped. "What are _you_ doing here?" the Weasley asked, in his typical loutish fashion.

"I might ask you the same thing," Snape said. "This is my dream, after all."

"Dream?" Weasley snorted. "These are Harry's memories. What are you doing here?"

"I assure you I do not want to spend any more time with the Potter brat than I can help," Snape stared icicles at the red-faced child. _Still a child,_ he thought. _He's just never grown up. _

"Professor…" Perhaps the insufferable girl could be reasoned with. "This… since this morning, we've been falling into Harry's memories whenever we fall asleep. My guess it's because of the healing web we're sharing while we sleep. I haven't read enough about them to know whether it's temporary or…"

"Enough," he cut her off coldly and Weasley bristled like a donkey in rut. He ignored him with supreme aplomb and swept on. "The – effect – the three of you share is quite rare, but when it does happen, from what I have read, the sharing of dreams and memories for a night or two is fairly common. My guess is that the effect is, indeed, temporary. My only question is why I am here."

"That's what I want to know!" said the blockhead.

Ignoring him, Snape mused, "I was touching Potter's head just now; I was the attendant healer, so the web may have mistaken me for one of your circle."

"But why Harry's memories?"

Snape couldn't help sneering. "Everything has to be about precious Potter, doesn't it."

"Now look here…" Weasley began, but the girl shushed him. Snape pursed his lips. Usually, the one whose natural magic was most powerful imposed his memories on the others, but he'd be damned if he'd admit it to the Gryffindors, because not only did they not need to know that the brainless whelp had more powerful magic than any of them, but he would also be admitting that this was not a dream, but a memory.

Which meant it had actually happened.

"Who's Dudley?" Snape asked, looking at the still tableau, wondering what it would take to unfreeze it again.

"Bloody cousin," Weasley growled. "If I had my way…"

Severus remained calm. "He does not bear much resemblance to Potter."

"Night and day." The yob narrowed his eyes at Snape. "Having fun watching him thump Harry?" Snape did not dignify this with an answer. He saw Granger pull at Weasley's sleeve and after a second, the belligerent posture slumped. "Sorry," he muttered. "Just… the times I've seen him come to the Burrow banged up because of that miserable cousin of his…"

"What is the meaning of this!" a teacher finally shouted as the memory restarted. Snape wondered who was controlling it as a sandy-haired middle-aged man in a dark green jersey jogged towards the children. 'Dudley' lumbered up off Harry quickly as the crowd scattered.

"Disgusting little vermin, watching something like that and not lifting a finger," Snape thought.

"Too right," Weasley responded vehemently and with a shock Severus realized he had spoken aloud. "Bloody enjoying it, too. Poor excuses for human beings, Wizard _or_ Muggle."

"Indeed," Snape growled, then blanched: he had just agreed with _Weasley!_ "What happens next?" he asked hurriedly, eyeing Harry. The boy apparently lacked the strength to get up; he lay there, panting from having his upper half crushed by his massive cousin, his little-boy privates hanging out in front of the whole school, his face a mixture of rage, humiliation and oxygen deprivation.

"Dunno," Weasley blurted. Sometimes it was a nuisance being a Legilimens, especially in a dreamspace like this. Snape could feel a blast of protective rage from the tall young man next to him, see the mental picture of him running to the poor little boy and scooping him up in his arms. Perhaps it was this that made Weasley sound vaguely more civil when he spoke again. "Never seen this one before. Not too keen on seeing it, either."

"You know what happened the other time," Granger warned softly, touching Weasley's arm in what Severus considered a disgustingly wanton gesture. He hoped she would refrain from pawing him in his, Snape's, presence. "Whichever way you turn, we've got to …"

"Watch, yeah, yeah," the boy responded. "Still don't have to like it, though."

The teacher was hauling Harry up by the arm. The little boy tugged his pants up valiantly. "It was your cousin, wasn't it?" the teacher snapped.

The boy jumped. "_No_!" he shouted wildly. "No, it wasn't!"

"It's very noble of you to want to protect him, but this isn't…"

"No, no it wasn't him, it wasn't, I tell you!" little Harry insisted desperately.

"What the hell's he on about?" Weasley muttered. "We all saw him. Bloody teacher saw him, does Harry think the teacher's an idiot?"

Severus agreed with Weasley again, which disturbed him more than he cared to let on.

"I shall be writing a note to his parents about this," the teacher said sternly.

"A _note_? They should have him chucked out," Weasley fumed.

"No, no, please don't!" the boy next to him almost shrieked, a note of panic in his voice. "Please, please don't!"

The teacher merely smiled and patted Harry on the head. "Such a noble little boy," he opined. "I'm afraid you can't get your cousin out of trouble this time. He'll just have to take his medicine." With that, he disappeared into the building, leaving a despairing Harry behind.

"Why on earth is he defending Dudley?" Granger mused. "Surely a letter from school will make the Dursleys sit up and take notice? They can't ignore that, can they?"

"I dunno, Hermione," Ron muttered, and Severus heard a note of uncertainty in his voice. Then he said, audibly trying to cheer himself up, "Anyhow, that's just what he needs. A note telling his parents they won't put up with the bullying at school. Yeah."

He wasn't sure how much time had passed in this timelessness, but the next thing he saw was the children walking out of school, shouldering their bags, heading for home. Dudley didn't seem too upset about the note; he was swaggering out of school with a jaunty air. "He doesn't seem to mind it much," Weasley observed.

But then they saw Harry. He sprinted out of school, not pausing to look behind him. "What's up with him?" Weasley muttered.

"Do you expect me to know, Weasley?" God, was the whole family this garrulous? And he was planning to marry the know-it-all, as well. Good Lord. Maybe their offspring could find employment with the WWN.

"No, of course not, I just…"

"Ssh," said Granger, and her tone was so gentle and motherly that he did, indeed, allow himself to be shushed, instead concentrating on Potter. The short little boy – he had to be seven or eight, Severus mused, but he looked stunted for that age – had reached the town centre, and was now skulking along the back entrances of the shops. "Whatever is he doing?" the girl wondered.

Harry was – no, he wasn't! – yes, he was – poking along the row of dustbins that lined the narrow lane. "Potter's a beggar! Looking in dustbins! Dustbin Potter!" taunted two girls riding by the mouth of the alley on bicycles, but Harry ignored them as though they weren't there. Severus felt a surge of righteous indignation from Weasley, coupled with first-hand knowledge of what it was like to have so little that you were obliged to use someone's leftovers. It was so intimate that he squirmed; he had no desire to understand a Weasley.

As they watched, Harry lifted the lid off a dustbin at the back of a shop called Flour Power. Setting his bag carefully to one side, but not too far off, he rolled up his baggy sleeves and rummaged inside. "Ah!" he shouted with glee, and his face lit up. His hand emerged bearing an intact steak and kidney pie with a crumpled-up tissue sticking to the top. Pulling off the tissue and flaking off the bit of crust it had been stuck to, Potter sat down in the lane and proceeded to stuff his face, an expression of pure bliss spreading over his features.

"What the fuck…" Weasley expostulated, while Granger whimpered. Severus wanted to tell them to shut their traps, but he couldn't. He could feel the pleasure at finding food radiating off young Potter in waves, and was too busy trying to Occlude to shut them up. The bliss on his face touched Severus' heart in a way that made him angry. "Harry…" Weasley whispered in a strangely tender tone that made Severus want to punch him in the nose.

"Will you shut up, Weasley?" he snapped.

"Can't you see what's going on?" Weasley rounded on him, fire in his eyes.

"_Boys_!" Granger hushed them, then turned bright red as Severus turned to her, incredulously, and fixed her with a stare. "I'm s-sorry, Professor, I'm terribly sorry! I didn't mean to, it just…slipped out…"

He searched for his cold mask, found it. "See that it does not _slip out_ in future, Miss Granger."

"Yessir."

Little Harry had finished his pie now, and rooted around in the bin some more, fishing out three half-eaten sausage-rolls and one intact one. He punched the air triumphantly, and proceeded to roll them up carefully in the cuffs of his ridiculously too-large, too-baggy trousers. "What now?" Weasley huffed.

"I should have thought it obvious even to one of your limited intellect, Weasley," Severus drawled to hide the ache in his own heart. "The boy is hoarding food. Obviously he is not satisfied with what he is given at home."

"But why doesn't he just put them in his pockets?" puzzled Granger, logically.

"Not _satisfied?_ They starved him, Snape!" Weasley swung round to face him, ignoring Granger's logic as Snape deduced was his habit. "They always did, back when we were first years! They locked him in his room and gave him short rations! I had to pull the bars off his window to get him out! He only started to get taller after he came to Hogwarts and started eating properly! Merlin, I was this close to killing them so many times. The way they treated him…"

Severus looked at the ranting young man, vaguely amused, as a thought occurred to him. He couldn't say it out loud, so he deliberately let it escape through a chink in his Occlumency. "The reason you hated me so much was because you perceived me as someone who would hurt Harry, didn't you?"

That brought Weasley up short. If Severus had had a camera, he would have snapped a picture of the fish-out-of-water flap-jawed image, and framed it to hang on his wall:_ Weasleyus Stupidicus. Rare moment of self-awareness. Photographed in the wild, twentieth century._

"Look!"

Granger's voice snapped them out of it. What on earth was the boy doing?

He was hiding behind the hedge in somebody's back garden. Using his hands and a piece of sharp rock, he dug a small hole in the dirt. As they watched, the child turned and relieved himself into it, like a cat.

"Is he mad?" Severus wondered aloud.

"No." Severus chilled at Weasley's tone, cold and bleak as a blasted heath. Weasley seemed to understand; his tone was filled with dread. Severus needed someone to enlighten him, but he wouldn't ask _them_ for information, so he watched instead.

As Severus looked on, boy cleaned himself up with leaves ripped from a nearby bush, covered up his excrement with more earth, and washed his hands on the garden hose, bending to take a deep drink of water. Then he set off for home with an air that was almost jaunty.

Severus looked away, thinking furiously. He knew, he _knew_, of one thing that could reliably make a child do this. _But not spoilt Potter,_ he thought determinedly. _He's probably playing at camping and such-like_, he reassured himself_. Silly, childish pranks._

"So!"

That was the voice of Petunia Evans. Petunia Dursley, rather, he corrected himself. She did not sound pleased; in fact, he would venture to say she sounded more shrewish than when he had first met her. His head came up sharply. Harry stood at the door to his house; Petunia loomed over him from the boy's lower viewpoint.

"Getting my Dudley into trouble, are you?"

"What!" Weasley bellowed. "Getting HIM into trouble, you wretched, disgusting…"

Granger merely emitted a squeal of outrage.

"…making my poor boy look bad with false accusations, turning the teachers against him! I knew nothing good would come of taking a freak like you in! Give you everything and this is how you repay us? Well, I'm not going to stand for it! Come here!"

She dragged him inside. Harry's porcine cousin waddled out from where he had been hiding behind his mother's skirts, clapping his hands gleefully. "Oh, you're going to get it, Potter," he cackled.

Severus chilled when he remembered how Harry had been so desperate not to have his cousin sent home with a note from the teacher, how confident Dudley had been that no consequences would befall him. But Harry seemed unfazed, though most of that was probably bravado. "Oh, _you're_ here," Harry drawled with Slytherin sarcasm, looking over at Dudley. "Thought the zoo might have spotted you on the way home and taken you back."

Meanwhile, Petunia had pulled out one of the dining-room chairs and was hauling Harry over her lap. An animal growl came from Weasley as Mrs Dursley pulled Harry's baggy trousers down and they saw how thin his little-boy bottom was. Severus suddenly understood why he hadn't put the sausage-rolls in his pockets; the way his trousers were hanging upside-down, they might have fallen out. He closed his eyes against the knowledge of how familiar the boy would have to be with this position to have thought of that.

"Bring me the brush, Duddikins," Petunia said briskly, and as the boy set off upstairs, she began to spank Harry hard all over his bare bottom and thighs, which began to pinken immediately. "Ungrateful freak! Nasty little monster! How dare you get my precious Diddydums into trouble!" she shouted, her hand slapping the thin limbs again and again. In contrast to the desperation in his face when he had entreated the teacher, now that the punishment was actually happening, the eight-year-old's face was a smooth, cold mask. Again and again Mrs. Dursley's hand smacked down, Harry's rear end going from pink to red, but the boy did not even move, just clenched and unclenched his fists in a way that tore at Severus' heart.

"Here's the brush, Mummy!" the fat boy grinned cheerfully, panting from the exertion of going up and down the stairs. He held out a shiny item to his mother.

"Thank you, sweetums," Petunia held out her hand to take the implement from him. "I'm going to teach Harry a good lesson about getting his betters into trouble."

She raised the brush, and Severus chilled as he got a good look at it for the first time. It was one of those modern metal-backed brushes with deep zigzag grooves going through the length of the flat end. That was a barbarous instrument to punish an adult, he fumed, let alone a child that age! It would bruise and blister! He caught a flash of agreement from the Weasley, followed by a blast of protectiveness and sorrow that nearly drowned out Granger's whimper. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the girl burrowing into Weasley's arms and weeping as Lily's sister began to whack away at little Harry with the hairbrush. "Worthless—disgusting—little freak!"

Granger's eyes were closed, but her body jerked with every cracking impact. Severus, though, could not tear his eyes away. The very first impact of the brush on the child's already tender flesh raised bruises, and the bruising darkened into black and blue as Petunia continued to whack him with the brush, the flesh serrated with lumpy wheals. This wasn't a child's spanking – it was torture! Severus fumed. But the child, while he jerked with pain – and it had to hurt abominably – made no sound.

Shame burned through Severus as he saw how wrong he had been about Harry being spoilt, knowing nothing of suffering. It was obvious that the boy was used to being hurt; it was second nature to him. He had _known_ what would happen when his teachers accused his cousin of bullying him. He was _used_ to holding back his cries while being punished. _No wonder,_ Severus realized, _no wonder he doesn't trust authority figures. _

Only now, after a good sixty or seventy whacks with the awful brush, were Harry's tears starting to fall. Mrs Dursley was still ranting on between whacks. "I'll teach you—to get your cousins into trouble—your weirdness—nasty little useless brat…"

Severus heard a sob, and wondered if it was coming from Harry. No, it wasn't. Another guttural, manly sob cut through the relentless crack of the beating, and Severus turned to see Weasley ridiculously blubbering aloud, full-voiced and without shame, his hands clenching on his fiancée's shoulders. He turned to the man, fully intending to snap, "Stop that racket, Weasley," but the moment he looked into the blue eyes, the wave of anguish that blindsided him was so intense that it rendered him speechless. He felt the protectiveness reaching out from the Gryffindor, felt it reaching out to grab the child in an insubstantial, impotent embrace.

Little Harry's face was streaming with tears now. The small, clenched fists pounded the floor involuntarily, and a tiny "Uh" was forced out of him with each subsequent whack. The child's bottom and thighs were turning white, blistering as the skin separated from the flesh beneath it and filled with fluid. And still the metal brush impacted the blisters, bursting them and making Harry's head lash from side to side with the pain. Weasley whimpered aloud. "Harry," he blubbered ridiculously. "I had no idea… I never knew…" Searing rage blistered the edges of Severus' awareness, a rage so strong that Severus took a step back, pouring off the young man as he clenched his teeth and shook with silent sobs. "I should have killed them when I had the chance!"

Severus barely had a chance to look at him before Petunia released Harry, his flesh deeply bruised, the blisters on buttocks and thighs broken and leaking fluid. He dropped off her knees onto the floor, panting and gasping in agony, but his tear-streaked face remained impassive, his chin stuck out defiantly. _Foolish Gryffindor_, Severus found himself thinking out of habit._ He would have probably got off much lighter if he had screamed and cried and begged for mercy. _

"Pot-ter got a span-king! Pot-ter got a span-king!" Dudley crowed, dancing around the chair. "Pot-ter got a span-king! Pot-ter got a span-king!"

"Oh, shut up!" yelled Granger, obviously at the end of her patience.

But the nasty, taunting boy kept up his infuriating chant as Potter stumbled to his feet, scarcely able to walk – Weasley growled like a wild animal to see him stumble – and, holding up his pants with his hands, hobbled to the cupboard under the stairs. Severus wondered whether that was where they kept the first-aid kit, but then the boy stepped inside and they were in there with him, although the cupboard hadn't looked big enough for Harry let alone the three adults. _One adult and two children_, he corrected himself hastily. It was dark and cramped and…

The boy lay down gingerly on his stomach on a sort of pallet-bed, pulling down his trousers to carefully bare his bottom and legs; _no wonder he can't bear to have anything touch them_, Severus thought. He heard the sound of a key being turned in the lock. "And you needn't think you'll be getting out before Monday morning or getting any food, either!" Petunia screeched. This was so strange that Severus reluctantly turned to the couple next to him for help.

In this confined space, Hermione Granger's and Ronald Weasley's sympathy and overwhelming, protective love for the child filled the darkness, palpable and fragrant like the smell of sweet basil or panaceum root, edged with pain and sympathy like the bittersweet tang of almond oil. "I…assume they lock him in here when he has… committed some sort of transgression?" Severus asked, hesitantly.

Ronald snorted. "Guess again, mate. It's his room. That's where they kept him until he went to Hogwarts."

"What?"

But Ronald's answer was drowned out by the welter of Harry's thoughts, which were coloured by one overriding emotion: triumph.

Wait a minute: _triumph_?

Severus unwillingly reached out with his mind. Yes, there it was. "I didn't make a noise or show weakness! And I got in a word against stupid Dudley! All right, it hurts, but I've got two whole days with no chores, I can rest as much as I want! I'm so clever, I thought to go to the toilet, I can last till Sunday before I have to beg them to let me use the loo, and with any luck I'll last until Monday morning! And I had a meal without their knowing, and" – the child fingered his treasure – "I have THREE sausage rolls for tomorrow and the day after!"

Severus gaped as the monologue continued. "I can take care of myself! I can take care of myself! Mum and Dad would have been proud of me! They did their worst, but they didn't break me! They didn't break me today!"


	9. Come Into My World 2

AN: This chapter is for duj, who helped it to be more canon-compliant than it would otherwise have been, even though we don't agree on everything.

Also, I'm considering taking out the Prufrock references. Would appreciate input.

_

* * *

_

_Survivor. _

_Survivor, survivor, survivor_. The word burned through Severus' consciousness as he spiralled back up towards whatever passed for reality in this dreamspace.

He'd seen bits of Harry's home life in the boy's mind before, of course. Yes, he'd known Harry's home life wasn't very nice, but when was life ever _nice_? Besides, it didn't seem as though the boy was in any way damaged by it – he was chipper, cheeky and cocksure. Although Potter's grief and anger had been quite genuine, he'd never been particularly sympathetic to the boy's privations: not being given gifts was hardly an excuse to cry child abuse, although that business with the dog had been a bit much. And he'd seen the disgusting cousin bullying him before, as well. It was obvious they didn't care for him much, and tolerated his cousin and other relations mistreating him. Still, children weren't delicate flowers. Too many people treated them as though they were breakable – not so much permissiveness as out-and-out spoiling. He'd done his bit by the brat, too – hadn't he hinted to Tonks and Shacklebolt that it might be a good idea to check into the quality of care Harry was getting at the Dursleys'?

But _this_…

The abuse, the cupboard… He'd known the boy was locked in a room with bars on the windows, but… He had no idea why he hadn't seen it before. There was no reason why he shouldn't, unless the memories were repressed too far to appear…

Whatever else he wasn't, Potter was a survivor.

Living was no great achievement. Surviving was.

He didn't like Potter, he couldn't ever like him, he thought, but being a survivor was a trait he respected.

"No, Harry, please, not that!" Weasley whined.

His mind whirled as he realized he wasn't out of the woods yet. He was still in the dreamspace. Granger and Weasley were STILL with him.

And they were…_cringing_.

"Not this one, Harry!" Granger entreated.

"Not in front of Snape, mate," Weasley pleaded, "come _on_!"

Severus raised his head to see what it was that couldn't be seen in front of him.

…_himself? _

He never wanted to remember the next half-hour. It was a whirling collage of memories from Dumbledore to Harry, memories Dumbledore had not shown to the public; memories that Potter, blast him, had shamelessly shown Granger and Weasley in his turn. And they were all of Severus, memories he himself had once shared with Dumbledore.

He actually didn't realize it at first. He saw Fawkes deliver something he knew to be a Memory Charm to Potter, saw Potter's face twitching as he sat on the bed in the room so familiar to Severus from Occlumency lessons, saw him as he absorbed _something_. He didn't actually see what it was that was so absorbing until Potter called his two friends over and started explaining to them how 'Snape' – he shot them a dirty look to hear his name stripped of the honorific as they blushed – was innocent. "I know what I said! I can hardly believe it myself! But Dumbledore left me proof!"

"Hmm." Severus almost felt smug at the embarrassment on the two students' faces; if he was right, their past selves would start insulting him right about now, never imagining that he, Snape, would ever witness this scene.

And they didn't disappoint. The girl hadn't really said anything that could be held against her – something about his not being serious and how he'd been fooled by the Dark Lord before – but past-Weasley was, as usual, a fount of insolence and disrespect. "You out of your mind, Harry? He killed Dumbledore! You said yourself he was a traitorous bastard!"

He aimed a look at the present-Weasley at that – really, it was amazing how red the human face could turn – and Weasley could do no more than shrug. "What can I say? You made it look convincing."

Severus then saw Potter open his mind to his two friends in his turn, over Weasley's protests that he, Severus, was a 'filthy traitor—'

—and found himself swearing aloud at the exposure of memories he had hoped to take to his grave.

Along with past-Granger and past-Weasley, reluctantly accompanied by their mortified present counterparts, he swirled into Potter's mind, and into the memory-recording Albus had made for Potter. The first thing he heard was Albus' rich voice, reciting one of his favourite poems by T.S. Eliot. How the hell did Albus know he loved to hear him in "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock"?

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets…

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

He saw himself as a student, under pressure as a half-blood in Slytherin, tormented by the Marauders, his schooldays Hell. He was surprised to feel a flash of sympathy from the couple, both past and present, at that; he'd thought they'd gloat at the humiliation of their unpleasant teacher.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—

The scene changed, and the time changed; he saw his induction into the Death Eaters, saw the fateful night that had changed everything, saw it through their eyes and felt the grudging sympathy alongside the disapproval. He saw himself robbed of his greatest love and bereft, mad with grief at losing Lily; he saw, through Potter's consciousness, his own regret, shame and loathing for his Death Eater activities. He heard a small sound from the girl as his own past grief ripped through the three of them with an intensity that he could hardly bear; had he not been in this dreamspace, he was sure he would have wept, though he had not shed a tear for a long time now. He felt naked as the young lovers saw his remorse, his shame and his fierce determination to do anything in his power to make amends, although no amends could ever be made for him, now that he had nothing left; he had lost the one thing he had ever truly loved, even though it had never truly been his.

He saw himself, slogging through day after meaningless day, Albus' love the only thing supporting him, measuring out ingredients, making potions, knowing the Dark Lord would rise again, biding his time, and existing through day after empty day of endless, agonizing regret.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons…

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

So how should I presume?

He didn't know what he'd expected, but it wasn't the warm curl of sympathy snaking out to him from the Gryffindor yob, settling on his shoulders. He hadn't done anything important; certainly no more than was his duty after all the sins he had committed. He didn't want sympathy!

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two…

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

As his old mentor's collage went on, he saw himself going to Dumbledore and planning strategy when the Dark Lord had risen again. He saw himself, of necessity arriving late to the Dark Lord's congress, and saw the Cruciatus Curse inflicted upon himself, inflicted again and again when he'd helped Harry thwart the Dark Lord's plans, more times than he cared to count or remember. He felt Potter's mortification at that, and theirs; he saw their eyes upon him, but ignored them. Yes, they might be sympathetic, but his innermost secrets had been exposed before them without his permission by Dumbledore and the indiscreet brat, who ought never to have had access to his memories in the first place, and he didn't need their pity, Severus thought fiercely.

So how should I presume?

Even as the outrage boiled up inside him, Severus had to admire the old wizard's skill in thinking to put together a collage of personal memories, despite taking issue with his choice of recipient. It was the only way to convince the hard-headed idiot, Severus knew; Potter had had to trust him so as to continue receiving his information if he had been able to stay on in the Death Eater camp as planned. His embarrassment, he knew Albus would say, was irrelevant. He shrugged mentally. His comfort had proved irrelevant long ago, and his personal life had always been forfeit. What was one humiliation more or less?

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

The scene changed to show the events of that disastrous year. He saw the past-couple and Potter stare flabbergasted at Dumbledore's stern instruction to Severus to kill him, followed by Severus' flat-out refusal and then his gradual acknowledgement of the fact that his dearest friend was cursed and dying; saw himself teetering on the edge of a precipice, the precipice of obedience.

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Then it came: he relived again that unbearable night he had worked so hard to push from his consciousness. He suffered again the maddening, unbearable pain that Dumbledore had felt with his own Legilimency in the moment Severus had cast the curse, killing a part of his own soul with it that night. The night he had fallen, for that was how he saw it; his soul had fallen from grace as Dumbledore's body had fallen from the Astronomy Tower. He had known then that there could be no life for him after this last and most terrible of sins. But, ever the obedient tool, he had not ended his life, because he was needed. He remembered how very little his life had meant to him then, how the madness had threatened to overwhelm him, the thinness of the thread with which he had clung to life, before time had lent him enough relief to make it through the days.

Yet nothing could quite dampen the overwhelming bitterness as he compared himself to Potter. They were both Dumbledore's men: but Potter was coddled and protected to preserve his eternal innocence, prophesied to vanquish the Dark Lord with his golden and sunny disposition, while Severus, though the irony did not escape him, was the Cinderella of the underground movement. From the start he had been sullied; as though he were so filthy a bit more dirt wouldn't matter, the dirty work had been left to him, the slogging through terror and torture and blood and moral filth and betrayal till, like Macbeth, he felt that "I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o'er."

Alone in the world, he had known it that night: that he was irrevocably, irredeemably damned. His past self's bitter sobs were echoed, to his chagrin, by a lump in his throat in the present as the bitterness welled up inside him and he set his jaw against the familiar grief. He didn't know any more whether it was the drink or the onslaught of memories that were weakening him so.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

"Steady on, there," Weasley said gently. "It wasn't your fault, mate. No wonder you're upset. What an awful thing to ask of you. If Harry'd asked it of me I'd have had his guts for garters – and I've got Hermione. You knew you wouldn't have anyone left, but you _did_ it. For _his_ sake. Because he asked you to." And with that, the tall boy wrapped his arms round Severus' shaking shoulders, pulling him into a warm, comforting embrace. "Ssh. You're not damned, mate. You loved him, you gave it all up for him." He pulled Severus' bowed head closer, bringing his cheek to rest upon his chest. "No one could have given more."

Severus jerked upright, startled out of his grief. How dared Weasley presume to touch him?

Only he wasn't; he was still standing apart with his fiancée, his hands on her shoulders, looking mortified even now. But Severus could distinctly feel his emotions, the words as clear as though they had been spoken aloud, feel the warmth of the hug as though it were real. Gryffindors just could not help broadcasting their thoughts, Severus tried to grumble. The sympathetic touch and words of absolution – _from a **Weasley!**_ – were comforting, but they disconcerted, unsettled him. What was he to do about it? If it were real, he could just glare at Weasley and have done with it, but what could he do to shake off this incorporeal touch, now stroking his back soothingly? He turned and glared daggers at the red-headed boy, and the embrace withdrew, not without a blast of embarrassment and a murmured mental _You'd think he could read my mind_.

The warmth, Severus was disconcerted to note, lingered on.

* * *

It lingered even as the collage faded and they were back in the grey limbo. "He had no right to show you my memories," Severus snapped, tight-lipped with fury, though the unsettling warmth lapped around the edges of his consciousness.

"We're sorry," Granger said, and her face was sincerely apologetic. "We really are, he'd already shown us by the time we'd realized what was in it, and…"

"Enough," he snapped. He'd hoped to have the last word, but looked down to find the grass growing under his feet – literally. As he looked around, he found himself at Hogwarts, on the grounds near the lake, under the beech tree – only the colours of everything were much brighter, and things shimmered a bit…

He took in the dazzling sunlight, the girls dangling their feet in the lake, the foursome sitting under the beech tree, himself next to the bushes, and groaned. _Not again_, was his only thought.

"Oh, this is a dream," said Weasley nonchalantly, sitting under the tree and pulling his fiancée down with him. "We should know, he's had it often enough."

"_We've_ seen it twenty times at least." Granger accepted the proffered blade of grass from her fiancé's hand and stuck it in her mouth. Then she frowned. "That's unhygienic, Ron!" She made no move to spit it out, though.

Resignation began to give way to fierce anger, dulled slightly with fatigue and plain old shell-shock. Still, Severus' tone shook with rage. Potter dreamed of his humiliation often enough for his friends to become _blasé_ about it? "He…_enjoys_ it?"

The redhead had already leaned back, a blade of grass in his teeth, entirely much more at ease than he had a right to be considering he was in somebody else's mind. "Why don't you wait and see?"

"How dare you address me like that?" he barked.

"Sorry," Weasley said insincerely, "it's just that…"

The girl stretched out on the grass and laid her head in Weasley's lap. Severus felt his face heat in embarrassment at the sexual display. "Do you mind?" he snapped.

"Sorry, Professor, I'd forgotten you weren't fond of PDAs," said Granger, rolling off Weasley's lap.

"Personal digital…assistants?" Severus was puzzled at the non-sequitur. What did it have to do with…

"Public displays of affection, Professor!" the young woman giggled. "It's what they call it nowadays."

"Oh."

"What?" said Weasley, gawping from one to the other.

"Never mind," Severus and Granger said in unison, then blushed and looked away in different directions.

"Muggle thing," Granger elaborated. Weasley reached for her hair and Severus looked away, at his student self. Far too tense to sit down, he watched the hunted-looking young man he had been go over the OWL paper questions – he remembered how anxious he had been to ace that test – and start to move out of the cover of the bushes. "A personal digital assistant – that's what a PDA is short for – is sort of like a mini-computer," the girl started to explain to the adoring hooligan currently pawing her. "It's a bit like a… a charmed notebook, where you put in things you want to remember, like dates, names…"

Severus watched himself critically. In this dream, if dream it was, he looked more vulnerable. He snorted. If that was how Potter saw him…

"…appointments…"

Black and Potter stood up. "All right, Snivellus?" said Potter loudly.

Severus the younger was whirling to draw his wand. _Really, what was I thinking?_ Severus mused. _My wand should have stayed out at all times. _

"_Expelliarmus_!" He watched as the Disarming Charm did its work and his past self's wand flew twelve feet into the air and fell in the grass behind him while that mangy Black dog laughed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Severus could see Potter – Potter the younger, that was – approaching. He was running full-tilt towards his former self. Severus raised an eyebrow. Potter, no doubt, didn't want to miss his share of the fun. _Attacked by two Potters at once_, he thought resignedly._ Charming_. So this was the revenge Potter dreamed of. And to make matters worse, he, Severus Snape, had to watch this disgusting dream, and a recurring dream at that. Well, he thought, planning revenge, he'd just have to file away whatever humiliations Potter inflicted on his former self in his dreams to embarrass the whelp to tears later.

"…and reminds you of them," the girl was droning on. "It has a little keyboard, you remember, like the calculator I showed you last summer? Only this has letters on it, so you type into it…"

"Wouldn't a Reminding Charm just be easier?"

"Do you mind?" Severus snapped. "I'm trying to listen!"

Weasley's casual attitude was positively infuriating. "Oh, that's right, he hasn't seen this one before," he drawled lazily. "Belt up a mo, Hermione, let him watch."

"Oh, that's right!" the know-it-all said in a sympathetic tone, turning towards Severus. He shrugged off the curl of sympathy that came from her, twined, a moment later, with the boy's, and growled. Gryffindors watching his humiliation like an afternoon at the pictures, he seethed, and obviously repeatedly.

_"Impedimenta!" _

The brat obviously had a good memory of the incident if it was imprinted so accurately upon his brain – such as it was. He watched himself lying helpless on the ground, panting, as the disgusting duo advanced on him, wands raised.

Potter pelted into the picture. _Perfect_, Severus thought. Would he gloat or just curse him while he was restrained? Perhaps he would take this opportunity to have a chat with his father and compare notes. _Male bonding, _Severus thought scornfully, _what fun. _His father had used _Scourgify_ and then _Levicorpus_, if memory served. What would Potter use?

A wave of indignation and protective emotion sloshed over him in the typical uncontrolled thought-pattern distinctive of Gryffindors, coming from Harry Potter. A split-second later, Potter had planted himself between Severus' younger self and his father, feet firmly planted on the ground, wand raised. "Don't you dare!"

James Potter tore his eyes away from the girls at the water's edge to stare at this apparition who looked so like him. Black's jaw dropped. Severus, feeling the brat's empathy with his past self, the overtone of loneliness and the desire to put a stop to this injustice, was hard put not to gape like a fish himself.

"Let me tell you a story," Harry said, his face white, radiating such outrage that James and Sirius stopped in their tracks. "It's about a boy who knows what it's like to be bullied. It makes his life a living hell, and he thinks it's the worst thing in the world, until the day he grows up to find his own father's one of the bullies who make life not worth living." His voice trembled. "What if you have kids, James Potter? Would you like them to see you bullying someone who's weak and alone, just because you can? You know what they say about bullies. Would you like them to see this?" His eyes burned into Potter the elder's. "Not your finest moment, is it? How can they respect you, knowing what you've done?"

James looked taken aback for a moment, then tried for his usual arrogance. "Hm? …All it'll take is for them to look at Snivellus…"

"HE'S A HUMAN BEING!" He'd never heard a voice like that out of Potter before. "How _dare_ you punish anyone for existing? I know what it feels like! It feels… it feels…" _Inarticulate as ever, Potter_, Severus thought, trying for his usual snideness, but unable to get past the image of Potter standing between him and his tormentors, unable to deny the outrage Potter was feeling on his behalf.

"If you've quite finished…" James drawled. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"I'm your _son_!" Potter yelled, and Severus saw the shock on James' face. _How frightfully convenient_, he thought, _and what awful dialogue. Really, a dream so unimaginative could only come from a Potter_.

"You're pulling my leg, right?"

"Whatever you do to him will be done to me," Harry said flatly, and his tone sent a chill through Severus. "Your choice."

James lowered his wand, shrugging, trying for nonchalance. "Well, I suppose some other time…"

"No. Never." Harry still had that flat, dangerous – almost Slytherin – tone. "Never again." His jaw was set, his face wearing an expression that almost, almost made Severus realize what people saw in him. "You won't lay a finger on him ever again, either of you, or you'll answer to me."

Severus caught a flicker of – _something_ – on the edge of his awareness, and noticed that Granger and Weasley were looking at him and grinning. _Grinning!_ He scowled at them and turned back to the scene, where detestable, arrogant Potter was saying, "Oh, all right," as though it didn't matter to him one way or the other.

"Swear it."

"Oh, come on…"

"I mean it." Potter's tone was deadly. "Never again. Whether I'm here or not. You won't touch him again. You won't even speak to him out of turn. No pranks. Nothing. No more bullying. _Swear it_."

"I—" James seemed about to argue, but Potter moved his head and a ring of flame erupted around the two Marauders. Lupin and Pettigrew were both on their feet now.

Potter just stared into his father's eyes.

"I swear it."

"You too, Sirius."

Black looked into Potter's eyes, and Severus felt a wave of pain. "I swear it."

"Good." And the ring of flame vanished as though it had never been.

Potter turned to his fallen past-self, holding out a hand to the gangly boy. _I didn't look like that!_ Severus thought. He stared as Potter stood there mutely, hand extended to help 'him' up. "I'm sorry," Potter said. "I never knew. I really am sorry," he finished lamely, inarticulate as ever. And still he stood there like a statue, holding out his hand.

The Snape on the grass looked up, warily. He sat up…

Potter stood there, offering a hand up, and present-Severus could feel the sincerity in him. He realized he was holding his breath. Past-Severus appeared to come to a decision. His eyes took on a look of resolve…

"Mr. Potter! Time for your potions!"

"Check the monitoring spell, Eugenia!"

But whether or not he would have taken Potter's hand he never knew, as loud voices jolted Potter out of his dream and sent Severus hurtling back to the operating-room floor.


	10. Fame

Author's Notes: This one is dedicated to Ataea, in apology because she doesn't like the Pomfrey/Snape hints. It won't get much worse (I use the term relatively) than this chapter, though, and if you choose, you can read it as implicit Harry/Snape.

And thanks, Kim32, for all the support and lovely reviews.

* * *

Severus tossed and turned in his bed that night. Whenever his eyes closed, he would see the Potter brat standing up to his own father in the daydream, to protect him. Why it should warm him he had no idea. And that Weasley boy ought to patent that healing power of his – for Heaven's sake, his cheek still tingled pleasantly from Weasley's incorporeal 'hand' pulling his face into his chest. He was too honest not to admit the warm glow of comfort he now felt at his very core, just because of a psychic hug from an unworthy yob and a few words of absolution. That power was probably one reason, he mused analytically, why the whole bloody family was so fertile. That explained a lot – the yob was the heart to Granger's head and Potter's body. Ancient magic, formed unwittingly, and probably the reason why they worked as a team despite their comparative lack of skill.

He groaned as Poppy called him over the Floo. At least this time he didn't have to dress; mental disciplines were some of the most taxing in the repertoire, and he'd staggered back from the ward and fallen into bed last night fully clothed. "Morning, Poppy," he burbled, staggering over to the Floo to talk face-to-face. He ran a hand through his hair. He must look as though someone had mistaken him for a Quaffle, he thought ruefully, feeling his scratchy stubble and grimacing.

At least Poppy didn't look much better. Insomnia was a common complaint among St. Mungo's staff these days. Her hair was back to normal, and she looked well. Still, her face was redder than usual. "Good-morning, Severus," the mediwitch began, then fell silent.

Severus was on the alert at once, though he felt, in his bones, that nothing serious was the matter. "Is everything all right, Poppy?" he asked carefully, settling into a chair by the fireplace.

"Oh, yes."

"Nothing the matter? No relapses or anything of the sort?"

"Oh, no no."

"Fuchsia Fever all gone?"

"Hm? Oh, yes."

"Well, is…there any new information on anything?" he fished.

"Information? Er…" Poppy seemed to be, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words. "Severus," she finally faltered, "I'm not quite sure how to put this, but… would you like to join me in a cup of tea sometime?"

What? Momentarily at a loss, Severus finally said, "But we meet every day for breakfast, and lunch, and sometimes for dinner as well."

"Oh…" Looking flustered, the mediwitch finally said, "I mean… _socially_, Severus."

He frowned. It was just too early in the morning for this. "What's the difference?"

_Women are insane! _was his next thought when she suddenly threw back her head and laughed. "O, Severus! Should have known I'd have to talk to you about the birds and the bees! How you became a Death Eater I'll never know," Poppy giggled. She said slowly, as though speaking to a child, "I'm _propositioning_ you, Severus. That is, if you'll have me," she added hastily, her smile disappearing.

"Prop…" He discovered, to his chagrin, that he was stuttering. He'd rather face a Basilisk than a woman any day. "Poppy, I… am somewhat out of practice. I haven't had tea with a woman since…"

"Since you joined You-Know-Who, yes, I can't imagine they're much for tea-parties," she snorted. "Bellatrix Lestrange probably knocked back a glass of AB positive every morning." Poppy's eyes turned serious. "I'm not looking for experience, Severus, I'm looking for _you_."

Severus reeled. Poppy Pomfrey was considering him as a … a _man_? "Er…ah…" Oh, wonderful. Stuttering like a schoolboy, saving Ronald Weasley, interior decoration à la Alfie Prince… was there any indignity he had yet to suffer this week?

Poppy's face fell. "If you don't find me attractive," she said carefully, "I understand…"

"Oh, no!" In point of fact, Severus had always thought her a fine figure of a woman, but the crux of the matter was that he had closed the door to considering any female attractive years ago. "You are… any man would be honoured to have you as his consort."

"_Con_sort! You are so Victorian!" The laugh was back in her eyes and voice. "So you will take tea with me, Severus? One old warhorse to another?"

"That's very flattering, Poppy, but I…er…" Was there some excuse he could give her? Say he'd think about it? **_Think_**_ about it? She's not proposing, man,_ his mind sneered, _she asked you to join her in a cuppa! What's there to think about? Earl Grey or English Breakfast?_

"I wouldn't normally be so forward," she interrupted his furious internal monologue, "but I wanted to – what is the Americanism? – stake my claim before your door is beaten down by hordes of females, after that article in the _Prophet_."

"Oh, you don't have t…" He froze.

"Severus?"

"What," he said dangerously, "what article in the _Prophet_?"

"Oh, you don't know?" she asked, much too innocently for his liking. "They interviewed Harry late yesterday afternoon, when he was conscious for a couple of hours…"

He rose from his chair, looming over her menacingly. "_What_ article in the _Prophet_?"

"…There was this quite impossibly persistent reporter, she turned out to be a Herbimagus, transformed into a dandelion-seed and floated in, and funnily enough, Harry was quite eager to give her an interview. He usually loathes the press, you know. I'd have thought you…"

Severus growled like a dog about to bite. "What. Article. In The. _Prophet_?"

For answer, she reached backwards into the fireplace, pulling out a well-thumbed newspaper from the room behind her and handing it to him. He palmed it and stared in horror at the headline, eyes popping out of his head.

BOY-WHO-LIVED HAILS EX-SPY AS LIFESAVER

Exclusive Interview by Aspidistra Blossom

BREAKING NEWS – The Boy-Who-Lived, fresh from the epic Final Battle with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, ("Hyphenation mania," snorted Snape) has named Severus Snape, the notorious double agent convicted and later cleared of the murder of Wizarding legend Albus Dumbledore, ("What atrocious editing!") as his saviour. "I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for him," the Boy-Who-Lived declared as he lay in his hospital bed, recuperating from the powerful, draining curse that finally killed the famous Dark wizard. ("More like dumb luck.")

Alongside the Boy-Who-Lived ("Bah!") were his comrades in arms, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, whose lives, Potter has revealed, were also saved by none other than the reclusive hero ("Reclusive fiddlesticks!") Severus Snape. "We Apparated into the hospital in a bad way, and he saved us all," Potter revealed. In an astonishing turn of events, Potter has also revealed that a great deal of the work that enabled the Light Side's victory was done by the Reclusive Hero, who, Potter has revealed, ("Potter has revealed, Potter has revealed. You'd think he was doing a striptease.") is intensely shy and prefers to stay out of the limelight. ("Poppycock!")

"Professor Snape deserves a lot more credit than we've been giving him," Potter was quoted as saying. "He's been unfairly treated like a pariah, just for doing his duty. I think it's finally time that the Wizarding community at large started to give Professor Snape a bit of what he deserves." ("I'll give you what you deserve, Potter. You mark my words.") Snape, forced to live beyond the pale of Wizarding society for months, currently languishes ("What balderdash!") in a menial job ("_What_?") at St. Mungo's Hospital for Medical Maladies and Injuries, and the grapevine whispers that he is looking for feminine companionship to wash away the pain of his lonely nights. ("THAT'S LIBEL! THEY SHOULD BE HAD UP BY THE POLICE!")

For a full story of Snape's tragic, misunderstood childhood, turn to Page 7.

For detailed information on what happened the fateful night of Dumbledore's death, turn to Page 8.

Severus lowered the newspaper in horror, noticing for the first time the sound of high-pitched screaming outside his door. His hand shot out, grabbed Pomfrey's arm, and pulled her bodily out of the Floo. "What," he hissed through clenched teeth, "is _that_?"

"Why don't you open the door and find out?" she giggled. _Giggled!_

Bracing himself, Severus pulled a chair up to the door, stood up onto it and whispered "_Permeo_" to the section of wood closest to his face. He set his teeth and stuck his face out through the solid oak into the corridor.

"Great _Scott_!"

From his high vantage point, he found himself gazing down onto a sea of females. There were at least thirty witches out there, shrieking in various stages of what looked like hormone-induced insanity. One or two of them were wearing robes that were falling open to reveal the most indecent, scandalous—

"EEEEE! THERE HE IS!"

An ear-splitting scream rent the air as the mad females saw him. "Oh my GOD! It's HIM! It's HIM!"

"It's the RECLUSIVE HERO!"

The tide of witches surged up to the door and the raucous noise doubled in volume. Severus was reminded of the Beatles' arrival in America.

"Ah! I can die now! I've SEEN him!"

"Ooh, Sev! I love you, Sev!"

_"Sev?!"_ he repeated in outrage. "SEV?" His fingers itched to grab his wand and…

"Severus, darling!" called out one of the witches. "I always knew you were innocent! A face like that can't lie!"

"You'd be surprised," Severus spat, shaking his head in disbelief. What on Earth had possessed the female population…

A reporter brandished her Quick-Quotes Quill. "Is it true you're secretly having a torrid homosexual romance with Harry Potter?"

"WHAT?"

"Open up, Sevvie love!" screeched a witch with a ridiculously obvious Bleaching Charm on her hair and a pink frilly _something_ – he averted his eyes hastily – under her robe. "I want to have your BABIE-E-E-S!"

Toying with the idea of hitting the demented female with a Sterilizing Curse immediately to save the world from her offspring, he looked beyond the witches. Four or five Ministry officials were standing there, the posse headed up by a jovial-looking bald wizard, florid and flamboyant, and damned if that wasn't the Order of Merlin he was clutching in his left hand. "Open up, war hero!" he bellowed heartily.

"Sweet Slytherin's spectre," Severus bleated. "All this because of a few words from a silly little…"

"Let's see how _you_ like it."

Severus whirled, nearly falling off his chair. Potter lounged smugly against the mantelpiece, looking for a moment so like his detested father that… But no, the burn still disfigured his scalp, and his nose was different, and those eyes were Lily's – "Haven't your dim-witted friends cried yet?" he snapped, stepping down off his perch.

"What? Oh, this," Potter raised a hand to his scorched head, still wearing that infuriating smirk. "I'll get it healed in a bit. Couldn't miss your first meeting with your fans."

"Get your head healed, Potter," Snape said tightly, "so that I can strangle you."

"Temper, temper," Potter said. "Why, Professor, you've always said how much I enjoyed my fame. I thought it was high time you got a little of your own. A bit of what you deserve."

Poppy placed a restraining hand on his shoulder; Severus realized he was growling like a dog, and controlled himself with an effort. "How dare you, Potter?"

"How dare I what? All I told them was the truth." The face grew serious. "You've suffered for ages for something that was never your fault. These idiots take the word of the ruddy Boy-Who-Lived as gospel. I just gave you a bit of the credit you deserve. I know I don't deserve their fawning or the stupid fame, but at least let it be good for something."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "You say "The Boy Who Lived" as though he is someone apart from you."

"Well, he is," Harry stated simply. "I don't know who he is. Do you? I never knew, till I came to the Wizarding world, that he even existed. He's something they made up, a – I dunno, a fiction. He's not me, I can't be him. I can only pretend for a while, because it's what they want. Oh, I won't deny it's convenient sometimes – like today, when the only way to get you the credit that's your due is to use the stupid fame. But most of the time it's a right pain in the backside. Sorry." The boy grinned ruefully. "People love the Boy Who Lived, or they hate him, or whatever, but all I want is to be with my friends, the people who like _me_, you know, just Harry."

"Like Granger and Weasley," Severus said, understanding, the puzzle pieces falling into place at last.

"Right."

Severus hesitated a moment. "Dumbledore had no business showing you what he did."

Harry visibly deflated, then squared his shoulders. "S'pose not, but I would never have trusted you otherwise, and if I hadn't, Ron and Hermione…" He swallowed. "I never thanked you for that. I could never thank you enough for that."

Severus grunted, unsure what to say. "You've got a funny way of showing it, Potter, setting the press on me like that."

"It's not all bad," the brat said, and Severus knew he was speaking of the fame. "It—it opens doors. I know. It's a pain in the neck, but it can help you—do things."

"Such as?" Severus intended the question to be rhetorical.

The boy's mouth quirked. "Well, such as publishing in _Potions Quarterly_ under your own name instead of that German fellow's."

Severus gaped. "You knew about that?" Then another thought occurred to him. "Since when do you read _Potions Quarterly_?"

The half-smile became a full-fledged grin. "Oh, not me, I'd never understand it. Hermione does, and she said she recognized your style."

The potions master could do nothing but shake his head ruefully. He noticed he was smiling.

"So, Professor." Harry extended a hand. "Truce?"

Stunned, Severus stared at Potter's outstretched hand as though it were going to bite him. Potter was battle-scarred and standing in his own room, but all Severus could see was the boy who'd stood against his own father to protect him, extending a hand to help him up. Coming back to the present, Severus wondered if he should flat-out refuse to shake the hand anyway, just on general principle. A world where he and Potter were _friends_ made him glad he hadn't had any breakfast to puke up all over the boy's shoes. Then again, he thought, warming to the mental image, perhaps he _should_ have had breakfast.

Remaining motionless, Severus sneered out of habit, "You Gryffindors are like over-friendly dogs, aren't you? You just want to be friends with everyone." Couldn't make it too easy for him, after all.

"Pretty much." Potter raised his eyebrows. "What's wrong? Afraid to be friends or something?"

"Afraid indeed," Severus snorted.

"You are, aren't you? You're afraid that I might actually be different from my father and that you might have been wrong about me!"

"I know you are not your father, Potter, but I am not wrong about you. You are a spoilt, silly brat!" The brat was congenitally incapable of being polite to his elders and betters for a fraction of a second!

"Severus," Poppy murmured, but he ignored her. This was between him and Potter.

"If you say so." Potter's smile didn't waver – in fact, it looked infuriatingly smug. "You just saved the dearest people in my life, Professor, you can spout insults till tomorrow and I won't get angry."

He took a step back, wondering. "You have the whole world's friendship, why would you want mine?"

"Fame isn't the same as friendship," Potter said flatly. "They're fickle. You're their darling now, you'll find out first-hand soon enough what they're like." The Gryffindor quirked an eyebrow; "To answer your question, it's because you've got integrity. Yeah, you treat me like shit, and Hermione says a good therapist would work wonders with that anger of yours…"

"How dare she…"

"…but you helped when it counted. You've always done your best, you've put up with a hell of a lot to win this war, you've lost more than anybody has, I think."

Severus stared at the smug brat. How dare he speak to him like an equal? He represented everything Severus had ever hated, he… he… he'd stood up to the dead father he'd idolized for him, he'd defended him in his daydreams… _what was he thinking?_ Had he gone mad? He remembered the crazy reporters. 'Secret homosexual romance.' Good Lord. He shuddered. He'd as soon have a secret homosexual romance with the Giant Squid.

The pounding on his door began again. "Come on, old boy, open up!" the florid wizard yelled through the delicately carved wood. Severus grimaced. He'd have to see them soon, or risk having the priceless door damaged.

"Aren't you going to let them in?" Harry grinned, a twinkle in his eye. "That wizard who wants to give you the Order of Merlin, he just won't give up. He had Hermione's house connected to the Floo Network, but somehow mucked it up and popped up through the heating duct into the middle of her mother's bath."

"So we are to swap stories of fame now, are we, Potter?" Severus sneered. He did intend to forgive the boy, but he didn't see why he should make it easy for him.

But Harry regarded him with serious eyes. "I think this is where we came in." He turned away. "It's all right if you don't like me, I can't force you to," he said with his back turned, "but I don't mind admitting I was wrong about you, and I am sorry. I owe you Ron's and Hermione's lives – and mine," he added, almost as an afterthought. "You'll always have my respect and my gratitude. I'll always be at your service. Anything you need I'll do everything in my power to give. Thank you, Professor."

Severus opened his mouth to say something, his hand half-raised, but Harry had already Disapparated, leaving Severus alone with the pounding on the door.

No, not alone. "That was a very ungracious thing to do, Severus," came Poppy's voice, gently chiding.

"What, just because I won't subscribe to the Potter mania?"

"You know that's not the reason, you obstinate boy. Honestly, Severus, sometimes I just want to spank you."

"I trust you will restrain yourself."

Poppy giggled. "For now."

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't even want to think about that meant.


End file.
